To Die So I Can Be Born Again
by Tsadde
Summary: Lelouch obtained the "Code Geass," and was able to survive his death. Now a fugitive to society, he and C.C. will be forced to face a much larger enemy as they realize that Geass, Immortality and recreating the world comes with a price worse than death.
1. Repercussion

To Die So I Can Be Born Again

By Tsadde

Chapter one: Repercussion

_"__I'm a soldier, meaning that I am both the defendant and the judge- _

_I'm standing on both sides of the fire. Going around in turns, _

_Overtaking death and life, I'm running to fight with the shadow of a lie." _

_-Origa _

The rain fell ruthlessly against the roof of the horse-drawn carriage as the smell of moist grass filled the air. The humidity was thick, like it was every summer around this time, and thunder echoed throughout the weeping, darkened sky. Lightening illuminated the dark path for the driver, the unfortunate soul sitting outside of the carriage's roof-like cover, drenched in the shower. He, however, was used to such circumstances, being a man of old age and much experience. Sadly, both served him very little use in the age of technology, where cars, trains and the like replaced the "ancient" methods of carriages. Often times, the only business he would receive would be from the occasional tourists, usually couples, who yearned for a more romantic, classic view of the serene country-side of the minuscule islands of northern Japan.

Seemingly untouched by the war, which had not too long ago ended, the small villages he'd so often pass by never changed their humdrum ways. He, of course, would know- his great grandparents lived here, and the generations to come did not rock the boat. The fragments of lands were untouched by outside influences- any involvement in politics often brought upon disputes from their neighbors, who often disputed over right to the Kuril Islands, so neutrality was vital. As such, the outside world meant very little. So much so, in fact, that though computers, radios and televisions were sold, they were somewhat of a waste of valuable store space. In their place, garden seeds and tools were sold. Hand-woven dolls, dresses and quilts were precious treasures and libraries were collections of magic- an array of portals to different worlds, different adventures to the people of these tiny societies. It was as if they were a different universe entirely, a world untouched by the tremor of time.

His thoughts drifted from the quaint feelings of those pleasantries to sheer curiosity towards the passengers who promised to pay him. If he had to be perfectly honest, he first assumed they were vagabonds, or young newlyweds, eloping from their home. The idea of good pay seemed bleak, but the young woman's earnest pleas struck a chord of sympathy. Perhaps it was the gleam of desperation in her golden eyes, or perhaps the sermon tone of her voice- Whatever the case, he continued on the dark, slippery road. Come hail or high water, he had to reach some type of shelter- surely, he thought, a storm was coming.

The sound of rain pattering above his head was the only lullaby C.C. could provide Lelouch as she placed a wet rage upon his forehead. His fever, which he swore was completely gone only an hour prior to his relapse, returned. The magnified pain became so unbearable he collapsed, leaving a shaken woman to worry after him throughout the entire ride they barely managed to pay for. His eyes were closed tightly, either due to the immense pain or lack of sleep. She tried to convince herself it was the latter of the two as she cupped his face sympathetically with her cool hands. As he mumbled in pain, she cringed. She knew this pain- the pain of first death. That time, she remembered, when she was killed by the very woman she trusted, she was shocked to find that she lived through what should have killed her. When she had awakened from her deep slumber, waking to a pool of blood and the corpse of the religious leader, she realized the transference of the pact, the Geass. However, the calm relief of survival was a fleeting one, as she would soon suffer through a series of painful fits for, roughly, a month. Unlike Lelouch, however, she had no one to care for her during these harmful side affects.

C.C. knew that the first death experienced upon receiving the Code was the only one that would ever leave a scar. The countless deaths she had suffered, painful and bloody as they may have been, never left a single trace in their wake. Not a single gruesome, painful experience left a scar etched on her body except the one below her breast. A pale hand rose from the man's damp cheek to press against the delicate softness above her beating heart. How ironic, she thought, that she and the ex-prince who lay on her lap were both doomed to carry the testament of their immortality in the same place- over their hearts.

"C.C.," Lelouch murmured, shaking her from her thoughts,

"Yes?" she whispered back. Lelouch smiled weakly to himself- her voice was filled with genuine concern

"I did it, didn't I? I carried out what was needed of me until the very end, right?"

C.C. frowned at the pleading sound of his voice, weakened by the lucidity of his sickness. A lapse in memory was to be expected, but it did nothing to comfort her worries- _his_ memories, afterall, where nothing short of unfortunate. His voice had once so strong, but it was now a mere whisper, an imitation of a small child's words in a dark room.

"Yes, Lelouch, you did it. Your plan was a success."

"Ah," he replied, "I'm glad…so glad…"

"How are you feeling, Lelouch?"

He opened his mouth to speak, but no word was spoken as his eyebrows soon contorted in a display of obvious discomfort. Just how much color could a single complexion lose, she asked herself frantically, how weak could a person become before they can reach rock-bottom? _How much more suffering would they have to endure before it was finally over? _

"Lelouch?"

C.C. was replied with the violent, heart wrenching sound of Lelouch coughing and gasping for air. In reflex to his need for oxygen, his sweaty fingers desperately searched for and tightened around his accomplice's. C.C. heart sank as watched in distraught as his eyes would close in pain, his body trembling and his chest rising and falling with every broken breath. C.C. was filled with a bitter anger at herself for allowing her eyes to water, fearing she could no longer suppress the sobs tickling her throat. _I can't see you like this,_ she screamed in her mind, _stop doing this to me-_

_"Lelouch_," she pleaded, unsure of the cause.

He attempted to speak, to comfort her. Through his blurring vision, he could see the despair in her face. "St-stop looking like that," he forced out hoarsely, summoning all his strength to reach for her free hand, "I did what I had to do. You should be happy."

"How can I? Happiness is exempt from me," she explained, indulging him in a touch, meeting and interlocking his fingers with her own, "What matters now is your well-being, you fool."

"I'll be fine," he told her. He tried to smile up at her, to signal to her he would surpass the pain, but was soon attacked by another fit of coughing. He attempted to hold back, to restrain himself from sounding as though he was in pain, but the hacking wouldn't stop. The pain wouldn't cease. He despised his lack of restraint- he knew he couldn't disguise the sound of his almost shattering lungs.

"Let me kill you," she cried, receiving a weak but shocked stare from her counterpart. "Please, let me kill you- your code might still not be complete! Then, you can die; then you don't have to suffer this pain, you won't have to bear through each endless day and go on hating the time that will never end. Please, Lelouch, this will only bring you pain,"

She gripped his damp shirt and let her head hang on his reclined shoulders, her hair acting as a curtain for his gaze. "Don't let me see you live through this. I can end it all for you. Then you wont suffer," she whispered low enough so he would not hear, "then you wont hate me, who did this to you."

Lelouch's shaking hand slowly reached for C.C., and rested softly on the top of her head. His eyes closed in exhaustion, and despite his mustered strength he found himself utterly unable to sit up. Regardless, he drew in a delicate, careful breath, readying himself for speech-

"Hating you is idiotic. I know my errors; I planned my actions from the beginning."

"But you didn't plan for _this,**" **_she retorted desperately. She knew how strange is must've sounded, to beg to bring his life to an end. But he didn't know the plague that awaited him, he didn't know, as she did, how horrid eternity could be.

"This, too, is the price I must pay for the sins I have committed,"

"Then let me pay them _for_ you," she pleaded, "Your sins are nothing if they were simply a reaction to my intervening in your life,"

"I don't regret this, C.C. This is what I expected from the second I stood before my enemies."

"You're delirious. The pain is hindering your thoughts, you're not thinking clearly. Use logic, Lelouch."

To this, Lelouch tightly held her hands in his, and closed his eyes in exhaust.

"You, who know better than I in this," he replied with an exasperated chuckle, "cannot truly believe that."

"I _know _so," she told him, "I _know _you don't deserve to this. An eternity of pain is by no mean redemption for a lifetime of flaws, you- "

"Is heaven wrong then? Is hell a lie?" he replied shakily, holding off an impeding cough, "You, who have spent your humanity believing in such things, is God, then, a liar?"

The horses came to a long awaited halt in the early hours of dawn, as the sun began to peak lazily over the hills. Small droplets of water joined the large puddles on the concrete road ground, and the grass gave off the delicate aroma only found after the skies had finished pouring. The driver, despite his rather tired body, insisted on helping his customers to the door- taking note of the young man's sickly appearance and his inability to walk, he aided his partner and helped her carry him into the small home they had arrived to.

After kindly waving the old man goodbye and once the man drew away C.C. entered her new home, nestled quietly behind a well-kept bakery. The window display was one of shining glass, allowing those who passed by to peer inside the shop and see an array of beautiful cakes and breads, amongst many other pastries. As she opened the door, she took a moment to admire the peacefulness of the scene, as one or two people would occasionally walk across the quiet streets with umbrellas. She noticed little girls dressed in raincoats, stomping their feet merrily in the puddles as their mothers spoke casually behind them. A small smile graced her lips as she reminisced about the small town, thinking to herself of how little it seemed to change- one of the only places she found that seemed almost untouched by the distorting of fleeting years.

She opened the door and entered her silent and dark room quietly. She entered what she had decided to be Lelouch's room and knelt by his bed, where he was laying. Worried, she put her delicate hand over his warm forehead and attempted to calm herself with the thought of the doctor who would be making a house call for her and was more than probably arriving shortly. She studied Lelouch's constant breathes, the rhythm of his breathing, how his hair hung around his face, how long his eyelashes were- taking in every factor of his being as though this would be the last time she would ever see the boy who was once king. Before her laid the delicate life of the man who changed her, the one who revealed to her the glimmer of hope she had long lost. Golden eyes narrowing in exhaustion, she comforted herself in his presence. This was the life that changed hers, she noted, and it was her duty to protect her up until the last moment possible.

All right readers! I fully understand this chapter was more than probably dull and somewhat out of character on C.C.'s end. I have an explanation for both, I assure you! The first, I have been suffering from a case of writer's block that lasted a yearlong. A _year_. That's a massive amount of time. Thanks to all the stress of my first year of high school, a new member of a household and so much more, I simply had no time and no motive to write.

However, after a recent surgery I decided now is the perfect time to start. Needless to say, my writing skills have gotten both rusty and crappy. I shall try to get better at it, so give me a bit more time. By my next chapter, I hope I'll be much better.

As for C.C.'s out of character-ness, I did this because of my first issue and because in my head, after Lelouch's "death" I believe C.C. would have probably gone through an excessive amount of stress and trauma for the death of another beloved person. If you don't agree, think of Mao. She wasn't as close to him as Lelouch, I presume, but she was very delicate towards him. I think the fact that Lelouch died, in some ways, because of her and the fact that she still hasn't reasoned out why he is still alive is a big key in this. Well, that's all in my mind after all.

I hope you enjoyed (I tried hard!), I'll update soon and it will get much better and please leave me comments. Be gentle! Thanks and God bless!


	2. Reminiscence

To Die So I Can Be Born Again

By Tsadde

Chapter Two: Reminiscence

"_When you turn your eyes to a distant tomorrow, the past will become glass- you can touch it or peer inside, but it's solidified and can no longer be shattered."_

_ -Uverworld_

Lelouch woke up. That was the very first thing that suprised him- he felt confused, distorted upon awakening, as if something was amiss, somehow. He wasn't certain of the time or the day, and upon looking around him, he realized his current location was a miracle to him, too. His head, almost immediately, struck him with a strange sharpness causing a terrible aching. Straining to move about, his body felt heavy as if it were rusted from lack of use. Each limb, each use of muscle, felt like such a sheer _struggle._ He forced himself to sit up in the bed he was laying in, despite the eccentric sensation. His violet eyes fell upon a near-by object at that very moment, a book spread open in testament to its recent use. He took the book with both hands, carefully examining the delicate pages, colored with age. _"Oh, that my body was that of water,_" the young man silently read to himself as he held the delicate book, "_and my eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain children of my people."_

He closed and studied its simplistic black cover and gold-trimmed pages, taking in the new experience of holding a bible in his hands in slight awe. Lelouch was not a stranger to idea of a higher power, as his father would often invoke God on his own behalf and will, as rulers often did with their grand power. It was a simple strategy dating back to ancient times, where those in power would enforce the belief that a higher power not only acknowledged their rule, but advocated it. Some went as far as to proclaim themselves people of holy stature. However, God was a distant figure in Lelouch's young life, starting from his early childhood.

To his father, God was not a guide, nor was He a stronghold, but a tactic, a mechanism to add authority to his growing power. To Charles, God was not an aid, but a _rival_, an omnipotent, omnipresent reminder of the limits of his humanity, and thus the ultimate enemy. Even Marianne, with her kind demeanor and gentle mannerisms, never once uttered the name of God with warmth, but a strange distance that Lelouch's childish innocence could never describe in words. Lelouch passed his long, slim fingers across the cover and felt it's smooth texture, deep in thought. _I spoke of God's will in the world of C. Yet, I know nothing of it. Where do I come into play in His 'will', then?_ He asked himself, feeling utterly surreal and somewhat exhausted.

Regardless of his slight fatigue, he forced himself out of bed and took slow but steady steps through the unfamiliar and empty room, adorned with a dresser and the bed he had slept on. He walked, testing his strength and unsteady balance, out of the room and down the slim hall where another bedroom, the bathroom and possibly two or three closets could be found until he reached what appeared to be the living room.

He was surprised, and for some reason unknown to him, uncomfortable to find C.C. and a stranger alone in what appeared to be the kitchen of the household. C.C., her hair loosely braided and her red and white dress rolled up highly by her thighs was moping intently, while a young man, appearing only a few years older than Lelouch himself, sat in chair by a table, busily pouring some type of herb into a bowl, an array of different bottles with different contents surrounding him. Complete silence, with the exception of rather disturbing gurgles and simmering sounds coming from a nearby pot, filled the air.

"If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times- the medicine I gave him will not, I repeat, _will not_ harm the boy!" the young man laughed whole heartedly, only adding on to Lelouch's confusion. "You always were to quick to assume the worse!"

"When something has enough acid to burn a whole through a stack of papers, it's generally not very good for medical use,"

"Oh, ludicrous! That which doesn't kill you only makes you stronger,"

"So you admit it very well had the potential to kill him,"

"C.C., my dear, I don't think I've ever since you so concerned over a human life before, what _has_ happened to you?"

Lelouch's eyebrows rose in an expression of sheer curiosity, and as he remained hidden from their view, he continued to listen in on their conversation. However, despite his desire to eavesdrop, he found that his legs were suddenly hit with a sensation of pain and his strength rapidly gave out as he fell to the floor with loud _thunk!_

C.C. curiously looked around to see the source of the strange noise and, when realizing the reason of the sound, dropped her mop and rushed to Lelouch's side. His violet eyes rose to meet her concerned golden ones- it was a strange look, he admitted, to see her so...sympathetic. It reminded him of the instances in which she reverted to her childish personality after he ventured into her memories. The meek look in her eyes, only slightly resemblant of her sharper gazes, seemed genuine, unadulterated. She was unarguably _concerned _for him. Embarrassed, he looked up at her on his knees, arms extended to the floor, supporting his upper body from being reclined on the ground as well.

"Why are you up?" she asked him, taking hold of his arms and gently helping him sit up, "you should be in bed."

Lelouch, feeling deeply distorted, attempted to respond but found no sound came out. His eyes widened and his hand, in a natural reaction, rose to his mouth, as though some kind of abnormality had been uttered by his lips, rather than sheer silence. C.C. gave him a nod of understand. She walked him to his room, and silently urged him into bed. The man followed behind them contently, jotting something down in his hand (a habit that Lelouch always deeply detested) and joining them in the room.

"You wont be able to speak for a while, Lelouch," C.C. explained, "but, he's going to give me some medicine to help you with that."

The man flashed an amused smile his way and cleared his throat, "Hopefully, you'll regain your voice in about two to three days, at most a week. You're lucky, though, most people have to deal with the inability to speak for about a month, sometimes two," he explained, knocking on a journal he was holding.

"This is Alkaid, he's someone I've known for a long time," C.C. explained in her monotone voice, "he's a doctor, _in a sense_,"

"What do you mean 'in a sense?' Just because I don't have all those new degrees that doctors have today doesn't take away from all the years I've helped people- when you prevent Louis XII from dying of tuberculosis like his wretchedly idiotic parents, give the English puritans the means to prevent frostbite in the cold winters of the New World _and_ know how to make medicines to ease the pains of the Code, _then_ you can criticize my work ethics."

C.C. rolled her eyes and waved her hand dismissively. With a curt shrug, the 'doctor' strode out of the room with a spring in his step and a blatant grin. Allowing her attention to return to Lelouch, she placed her cool palm against his forehead and frowned, irritated by the slight evidence of a returning fever. Lelouch frowned at her, irritated by the fact that it was evident that there was something going on, something that he had missed.

C.C. read the growing agitation in his eyes and let her head recline to the side, "do you know where you are?"

Lelouch shook his head.

"Do you know why you are here?"

Another no.

"Do you know what has happened to you?"

Yet again, another no.

C.C. sighed. _Something's going on that they're not telling me, _Lelouch thought, wondering what were the answers to the many questions his accomplice had asked of him. He was violently shaken from his train of though when he felt the girl's cool fingers latch on to the buttons of his shirt. With nonchalance, she focused on the buttons and easily made her way down his torso. Mortified, he jumped back, eyes wide and cheeks warm, but she maintained an iron grip as she ignored his protests and opened his shirt.

"Stop being so vulgar," she commanded, "I'm trying to show you something."

Lelouch's confused expression was not ease, but his eyes followed where C.C. had so delicately halted, just below his heart. He studied the strange expression on her face, and then slowly took her hand off his body, seeing for the first time what she was gazing at so strangely. On his body was a large scar. It appeared fresh, barely healed and surely the mark of something tremendously painful. In that moment, it suddenly hit him- all in an instant, everything that happened flashed before him like a jolt from the sky had stricken his mind. The contract, Zero, the Black Knights, the student council, Kallen, Rollo, Euphie's death. Smiling, crying, pain, killing his father, moments of peace, moments of sheer terror, being emperor. Suzaku. Sacrifice. Nunnally. Her frowns, her strength, her small hands. Her tears. Her aching pain as she held his numbing body in her frail arms.

Lelouch turned to C.C., his eyes full of disbelief. Had he a voice to speak with, he was certain he'd have no words to speak. He placed his hand over the scar, over his heart that was still, somehow, beating in his chest. He, with a shaking grip, grabbed C.C.'s hand and brought it to his chest, over his heart.

'_Can you feel it, too?' _

C.C. nodded to the mental question, the silent message that had no need for words in order to be conveyed. She took in his trembeling frame, his confused expression. He was beyond amazed, he was petrified, shocked, akin to a child. She grabbed his hand and held it over her own heart, a mirror action of his behavior. Under his palm, Lelouch could feel the light pulsing of a beating heart. Lelouch's hand fell weakly to her lap as he remained still, numb. The green-haired women drew in close, allowing their foreheads to meet ever so softly and their breathing to intertwine. Just one moment of weakness was allowed, just a single instance of quiet affection and empathy. Pride and confusion waited eagerly at the door when normality would strike again- until then, she allowed herself to be selfish, to be human and reckless. Through her long eyelashes she could make out his closed eyes. Every memory, fresh in his mind, replayed over and over in his mind. As time seemed to pause, he was allowed to reminisce. He was allowed him to realize that not only had his life come to an end, but all those precious memories as well.

* * *

Lelouch sat in living room completely bare with the minute exception of a small table and several chairs. He felt a good deal better after having taken a strange medicine that Alkaid promised would work, despite the strange smells and sounds given off by the drink. C.C. sat by his side; Cheese-kun reclined against her lap as always and she was, like Lelouch, looking at Alkaid intently.

"So, as you can see," Alkaid told him as he flipped through his journal, the yellowish pages filled with elegant script and notes, "it's quite normal to loose the ability to speak. In fact, many loose other sensations- like the ability to see, or hear."

"The fever should be gone by tonight, and you'll be able to eat just fine as long as you take the first medicine I gave you every four hours for about a week. Try occasionally walking around when you feel well enough, but don't over work your body. You may begin to feel better, but remember you're still as feeble as an infant at this state, both physically and mentally. The last medicine, the one in the glass container, will probably tier you out a bit every now and then and you're going to be constantly thirsty. The worst symptom you might have to deal with is consistent coughing and occasional fevers, but you'll have to bare with it. This narcotic nulls the majority of the extreme pain you'll experience, afterall."

Lelouch nodded, taking all the information in. Through the passing pages, he could occasionally make out detailed drawings of herbs or flowers that could be used for medicine amongst many other things, like charts or lists. He recalled very well the pain he experienced on his way to his new home, and was in no way eager to relive that pain any time soon. Regardless of how questionable the medicine was, or how detestable it may taste, Lelouch would simply have to accept it.

"Do you promise to take it regularly? Or do I have to make our lovely C.C. do the honors of assiting you?"

Violet eyes narrowed and he nodded yet again, clearly agitated by the suggestion.

Alkaid's smiling face suddenly turned solemn as he took a breath and looked at Lelouch with intense seriousness. "The last matter we need to discuss," he told him, "is that of the Geass."

Lelouch quickly looked at C.C., from the corner of his eyes as she shifted uncomfortably in her seat. Alkaid laid his folded hands over the table and exhaled, ready to continue. "In this world, the amount of people who have obtained the Geass will probably never be known. In all honesty, I believe we will never be able to find out how many people have gained this power, but I do know that obtaining the "Code Geass" is next to impossible, in fact, I've yet to meet a person who has gained the power."

"'Code Geass' is the state reached when someone has both the Geass and immortality obtained through the Code-"

Lelouch made a clearly confused face. He looked at C.C. and then back at Alkaid questionally.

Alkaid's face changed into one matching Lelouch's, an expression sheer surprise. "Do you mean to tell me you don't know _how_ you obtained the Code?"

"He didn't know he had it to begin with," C.C. interjected

"_What?" _Alkaid laughed, "C.C., tell me that _you_, at least, knew?"

To that, the girl shook her head, "I was just as surprised as he was." She rested her head against Cheese-kun's and continued, "After Lelouch had died, there was a riot and Zero, _Suzaku_, commanded the attention of the people and gave enough of a distraction to allow me to take Lelouch's body without being seen by the people. He instructed me, before the Zero Requiem, to be by his side and make sure to offer Lelouch an appropriate burial."

She took a moment to recall the cautious and gentle voice Suzaku used to instruct C.C. in doing so, and smiled slightly. _Suzaku_, she thought to herself, _you never lost your care for Lelouch, did you? Even after killing Euphemia, whom you loved, you couldn't discard all those years you spent with Lelouch and his sister. You were kind until the very end._

"When I left with Lelouch's body to a designated area, I already had a burial place decided," she told them grimly, eyes set to the ground so they would not meet with those of Lelouch's. "It had already been dug it out, and I had been given a coffin, but when we were alone, I noticed that the wound has begun to close significantly. At first, I thought it was my imagination but I started to notice the color in his skin and after a few moments, he took a breath."

She could recall the shock so clearly- it was a moment she was glad Lelouch was not conscious to see. She could only imagine how pathetic she would look in his eyes, to be sobbing, out of breathe, over a corpse. She was C.C., a woman who had experienced death countless times, and had seen people die all her time. Yet, when she was alone, when she was no longer forced to be strong in order to stand by his side, she allowed herself to give in to her urge just once, and it seemed as though all the tears she had stifled in her long lifetime rushed out in that moment.

"What a shock that must've been," Alkaid remarked, nodding his head. He looked at Lelouch, and cocked his head. "So, you don't know how a Code is obtained?"

Lelouch shook his head, no.

"A code is obtained when a Geass user submits their immortality to another person, one who already has a Geass in its highest state. However, the Code is only activated once the person who has obtained it has already died." Lelouch frowned at this, a question clear in his mind, Alkaid nodded, acknowledging his question and took out a piece of paper from his journal and passed him a pen. Lelouch quickly jolted something down and passed it to the doctor.

"'But if immortality is transferred to another Geass user, that would mean that the person who gave it would die, wouldn't it?'" Alkaid read aloud.

He nodded, "Yes, that would entitle the immortality of the transferor to end, and allow them to age normally as average human beings do. They don't necessarily die after giving their Code to another, however. Instead, they revert to the normal aging process and live their lives out normally."

"However," he continued, frowning, "the majority of people who submit their Code to another usually kill themselves afterward."

Lelouch rested his chin on the palm of his hand and quickly glanced at C.C., _so C.C. gave me her Code? _He frowned, _No, she told me she wanted my father to do it so I wouldn't have to live the way she did. And she wouldn't just leave me now, to have to suffer like she did. She told me she wouldn't do that to me, that she _couldn't_ do that to me. _He felt his heart skip a beat almost immediately. _Had_ C.C. given him her Code? He knew she was opposed to his dying during the Zero Requiem and tried all in her power to pursue him to do otherwise. Even so, could she really have used him to bring her life to an end? Was he truly responsible for her, albeit non-directly, practically _killing_ herself? This had to be a lie, he tried to convince himself, C.C. couldn't possibly be mortal, no longer immune to the grips of death. He cautiously looked at her, but her focus was on the other man and her expression exposed nothing. She seemed as solemn as usual- no hint or slightest gesture to dishonesty or a jest.

Alkaid began to gather his things, putting away the bottles and medicinal ingredients into containers, and then his bad. "C.C., I'm quite shocked you were so careless to give him your Code and then forget doing so," he told her with a chuckle. "But I'd suppose in the midst of all the chaos that's understandable."

He stood up from his seat and extended his hand to Lelouch, who reluctantly shook it in return. "It was a pleasure to meet you, Lelouch, and welcome to the club," he joked as Lelouch nodded with a polite smile. The doctor then turned to Lelouch's partner, and his smile saddened. "I'm very glad that you're here, C.C., and it's great to see you again."

A sigh escaped the man's lips and Lelouch was taken back by the intense emotion in the man's eyes. "I can't say I'm not disappointed by your decision, but I understand it's a choice only you can make. At least, _this _lifetime you can decide to live to the fullest extent, right?"

Lelouch's hands tightened into a fist beneath the table and he tried to kill the growing resentment he was beginning to hold for this man, who was insinuating that C.C. had chosen to die, that his partner had decided to end her life once and for all. Lelouch resisted the urge to shake his head, to speak _for _the girl sitting by his side and tell the doctor that he was wrong, and more than anything, he mustered all the strength he could to stifle a reaction as C.C. nodded her head and said, "I will."

* * *

I was really worried that I made this chapter far too long. I really felt it would be a nuisance for all my precious readers, but I hope that this was a good enough length, considering the fact that I actually meant to make this chapter longer. Please, if you can, review and tell me whether or not you would mind my writing more next time. I really can't wait to write the next chapter, so I would love to hear your opinions.

As for C.C.'s owning a bible- I'm not attempting to enforce in religious beliefs but because C.C. was brought up by a nun and grew up during a time when Christianity was of extreme influence, it made sense to me that she would have some form of religious background to fall back on in times of need. You really need to consider the time periods she's lived through when you write about C.C., in my eyes, at least.

Also, as for what I explained as how to obtain the Code and all, or whatever I have added on to Code Geass, it will all be further elaborated later and better explained. I actually racked my head for a long time planning out every last detail that would allow Lelouch to live and the story to progress, so don't you worry if there seems to be some inconsistency in what is being said or whatever. Anyways, I really hope you liked this chapter, thanks for reading and God bless!


	3. Discretion

To Die So I Can Be Born Again

By Tsadde

Chapter Three: Discretion

"_Set me free from wicked passions and heal my heart of all inordinate affections, that being inwardly cured and thoroughly cleansed, I may be made fit to love, courageous to suffer, steady to persevere."_

_ -Thomas A. Kempis_

True to his word, Alkaid's medicine healed Lelouch significantly in the matter of only three days, which was enough time for his voice to return as well. Even so, despite being physically able to, he had yet to discuss anything of relative importance having to do with Geass or his Code with his accomplice.

He studied the person in question as she searched through the cupboards of their kitchen, while he sat, deep in thought, in the living room and stared out the window. He basked in the noon sun and peered at the dozens of houses and stores in view from their home, the ocean clear in the horizon ahead. _Now is as good of a time as ever_, he thought to himself. _There is a possibility she was lying when she said that, but then again, what would be the point to that? If it's true that she gave me her Code, why didn't I realize it? How could it have happened so simultaneously? _

"Lelouch," she called out to him, "we need to go buy groceries."

The young man was shaken from his train of thought and peered at C.C. through the hallway, "with what money? We haven't discussed any of the financial issues of having this home. In fact, how did you get this place, anyway?"

C.C. narrowed her eyes at him, her hair spilling over her shoulders as she leaned to her left and made eye contact from the hallway. "This used to be my home a couple of years ago," she explained, "and as for the rent and bills, it's all covered."

"What do you mean 'all covered'?"

"The people who live in the bakery nearby are the ones who put this place up for rent while I'm gone, though they're under the impression that Alkaid and his family are the ones who own this home."

"He has a family?"

"Yes, he married someone who has a Code as well, and they adopted a younger looking girl as their daughter," she explained. "They've been living in this place for years, but once they reach the point where it is obvious they aren't aging, they move away for a rather long period of time- until a few generations pass, and return."

"You said that they adopted a child- why don't they have children of their own?" Lelouch asked, resting his chin against the palm of his hand. C.C. frowned slightly and broke eye contact, returning to the kitchen.

"Lelouch, I thought you would have been smart enough to figure this out," she called out. "Once you have the Code, once you can no longer die, you can't have children."

Before Lelouch could ask why, C.C. continued. "It's a basic fact of nature that the longer the lifespan of an organism, the more difficult and less in quantity are offspring reproduced."

Lelouch nodded, putting two and two together, "So because your, _our_, lifespans have been altered to be longer the chances of having children are less likely. They'd have a higher chance of not surviving until birth."

C.C. nodded, "yes, and after a very long period of time, once you have lived a for a very long time, it is almost utterly impossible to conceive, reaching the point where you do not even reach the point of pregnancy."

"So, your body basically discards unnecessary function," Lelouch commented, putting an end to the process of discovery. C.C. nodded to herself and closed the empty cupboards, which she had hoped had some food in them, not considering the fact that had there been any food in those shelves, they would more than likely be spoiled.

"Lelouch," she called him, "let's go buy groceries."

Lelouch looked at her, surprised. "With what money?"

C.C. blinked, staring at him blankly and responded, "It's all covered."

* * *

"You can't do that, C.C.!" Lelouch scolded her, running to the girl's side as she opened a container of strawberries and bit into one contently. "You shouldn't eat food you haven't paid for!"

C.C. shrugged and finished the strawberry, only to pick another one out of the bunch. Lelouch rolled his eyes and pushed the supermarket cart along, snatching the box away from her. "Now we're going to have to buy this one, when they're a much cheaper brand right here," he complained with a sigh.

C.C. frowned, and as she attempted, and failed, to snatch the box back from his grip she snidely remarked, "Stop complaining, it's unbecoming."

Lelouch rolled his eyes and picked the best tomatoes he could find, and put them away in a plastic bag, as C.C. stood next to him, biting into another strawberry and crossing the vegetable off their grocery list. Lelouch exhaled uncomfortably as he continued to notice, from the corner of his eyes, the many gazes of the townspeople who had obviously never seen them before- even more embarrassing, he noticed the worried look of one of the shop owners as he watched C.C. empty the box of strawberries, now reaching for another one.

"C.C., I told you to stop-" Lelouch started, agitated, but was shocked to be interrupted with his partner shoving a fruit in his mouth and silencing him. C.C. grabbed the cart by the opposite end and dragged it along to the produce section as Lelouch, flustered, spit out the leaves of the strawberry his companion had so rudely shoved whole into his mouth.

"I cant believe you," he whispered to her as two passing teenaged girls giggled as they passed by them. "Behaving that way in public is going to give people the wrong idea."

C.C. continued walking, unconcerned, "and what idea, exactly, are you implying that I am sending out?"

Lelouch sighed, giving her a look of annoyance, and grabbed a gallon of milk. Suddenly, he heard a shocked gasp escape C.C.'s lips, and his eyes darted to where she stood. He followed her pointed finger to a large section of mugs, and was not shocked to see her attention was being taken by a Pizza-Hut Cheese-kun coffee mug.

"Don't even try it," he warned her.

"But, Lelouch, I need that," she whined

"You don't need it, you _want_ it"

"No, I _need _it."

Lelouch frowned, "we don't have the money to be wasting it on overpriced cups!"

"But I need that cup!"

"Do you seriously think that buying that mug with the limited money we have right now is of our highest priority?"

C.C. hung her head dramatically, defeated, "_fine,_"

Lelouch gave her a surprised look as he reached for a carton of a dozen eggs, unable to believe she would submit to him.

"Fine?" he asked,

C.C. nodded, stretching her arms and walking ahead of him. "I know when I'm beat,"

"You're seriously going to listen to me? _You_?"

C.C. gave him a charming, obviously insincere smile, "why of course, Lelouch, you know I respect your opinion- we're accomplices, equals, are we not?"

* * *

"I can't _believe_ you would sneak that to the register, C.C.!" Lelouch groaned as they walked to their home, side by side, carrying their freshly purchased groceries in their arms.

"You should know by now that I am a willful woman, Lelouch," she stated matter-of-factly as she held her "forbidden" cup securely in her hand.

"You're a _stubborn, disobeying, _woman with a lack of respect!"

C.C. narrowed her eyes, "I told you I wanted that cup,"

"But if I told you no, it's no!"

"What's the point in arguing so much? You're overreacting, as always."

"C.C., the point is," he explained, as he searched through one of the grocery bags. He showed her the cup she wanted, blue with small yellow cheese-kuns repeating in a pattern, "if you do things without permission, unpleasant things often happen. What are we going to do with two of these cups?"

The woman who stood by his side gave him a surprised look that soon turned into a small, subtle smile. Lelouch, noticing her look, looked away and frowned, feeling his cheeks warm slightly.

"What a gentleman," she remarked snidely, closing her eyes arrogantly. Lelouch rolled his eyes, exhaling. She smiled to herself warmly as she took in the familiar sidewalk and stores, noticing every now and then different shops, or the occasional mailbox or streetlight that wasn't there before. They were soon reaching the block where their home was at when a thought came to her head.

"We need to introduce ourselves to the people in the bakery shop," she announced.

Lelouch nodded to himself, "your right, if we want to fit in we can't be too distant. This is a small town, so it's only natural people are going to be curious, and if we seem to stand-offish it could be suspicious."

"_Or_ you could simply do it to be courteous,"

"And since when were you courteous?"

C.C. ignored the remark as they reached the place in question, and she peered inside the bakery window. "It's closed," she told him. She reached for the handle of the glass door, curiously, and was surprised to find it unlocked.

Silently, they both walked in as Lelouch knocked on the door, calling out for anyone who could be home. When no answer came, Lelouch looked at his partner and, shrugging, began to walk away.

"Wait," she told him. "The sign on the door says 'Back in five minutes,' we should stay a bit longer, don't you think?"

"Won't it seem wrong for us to be here while they were gone?"

C.C. sat in one of the chairs and set her bags down on a table, and Lelouch, giving in, joined her. He rested his chin against his hand, as he so often did, and casually looked at the girl with him, noting the quaint, pleased look she gave as she stared through the window. _Now would be a good time to bring up the Code,_ he thought to himself, _we're all alone, after all._

"I've been meaning to ask you something," he began, waking her from her thoughts. As her golden eyes met his, he was surprised to see how happy she seemed. Lelouch stared at her for a moment, before attempting to continue.

"Yes?"

"Well, it has to do with-" Lelouch started, but was interrupted by the nearby door suddenly slamming open. Both, surprised, turned to see a young man smiling back at them, slim and tall with sleek black hair.

"My, my, I didn't expect for them to go off running away," he remarked, as though to himself. "And leaving the door unlocked and everything."

The two watched as the gang of men barged in and swiftly began to knock things off shelves and counters, destroying the shop. "Stop that, who gave you the right to come in here and start making a mess of things?" Lelouch called out to them.

The young man, the leader of the gang, looked at him, surprised. "What a brave little boy, standing up to us like that!" he proclaimed, mockingly. "Listen," he warned Lelouch, his tone suddenly grave, "the people who own this place, let's just say they owe me a lot. And frankly, when people owe me I generally liked to be paid back in a relatively fair amount of time."

"But these people here, well, there just not being too considerate- it's been two years, after all, and they haven't paid there debt- not a dime," the stranger explained.

"So you're choosing to come in here and destroy their business- if you just ruffle them up a bit, make sure to scare them, then you'll get your money, is that what you think?"

The man laughed, "That _is _one way of putting it, though that's not my choice of words,"

"Right," Lelouch responded sarcastically, "because we all can look like heroes if we simply sugar-coat our intentions,"

The man chuckled, "How expected of someone as young as yourself to look at things so simply. But, right, now that you put it that way, maybe I should rethink my actions," he remarked, walking towards the door, "I don't want to be too self-righteous."

With a wave of his hand, there instantly came a loud ring throughout the air, the shrill sound of a gunshot, and shattering glass. Almost as though in slow motion, Lelouch watched as the glass window shattered behind him and C.C., the shimmering fragments shining in the light, as one of the many men in the group held a gun and laughed menacingly. The gunshot was followed by a long series of crashing, horrid sounds as the group threw down tables, chairs, smashing everything in sight.

C.C. and Lelouch crouched on the floor, ducking under the table in an attempt to avoid the violence. Lelouch felt warm blood trickled down his face from the flying glass, and watched in anger as the groceries they bought fell to the ground- from far away he could see the cup he had bought his companion, smashed to pieces under someone's foot. _Is this what I am now?_ He asked himself resentfully, _someone who no longer has power?_

While he attempted to plan a way out of their predicament, his thoughts were cut short when he saw, from the corner of his eye, a rush of green move upwards- C.C.'s arm was tightly grabbed by one of the men, who held the gun against her head. "Oh, don't go laying on the floor like that, sweetie," the man told her in mock-sympathy, "you'll get your pretty dress all dirty!"

Lelouch, unhesitant, stood up defiantly, unable to stand the horrible laughter emanating from the thugs. "Let go of her!" he told them, as strongly as he could muster as he soon felt his chest tightened and he began to become out of breathe.

The man pointed the gun at him, "what'd you say, pipsqueak? You got something to say?"

"Get your hands off her! We'll get out of your way, you don't need to hurt her!"

"Oh," the man replied, "how sweet- you're trying to protect your girl?" he remarked as his finger slid closer to the trigger. With a loud _crack!_ C.C.'s fist smashed against his face, and ran to Lelouch's side, grabbing him by the arm as they, in unison, jolted forward in a sprint.

The loud sound of collective gunshots rang in their ears as they ran, adrenaline rushing and hearts pounding. Lelouch quickly began to loose his breath, not only from his lack of fitness but the quick, piercing pain that was coming from his chest in a sudden rush.

A hand reached out and thick fingers wrapped around the back of the collar of Lelouch's shirt, pulling him back. C.C. watched in horror as the young man was drawn into the crowd of thugs, all crowding around him, as she was much further ahead.

"You think you can just get away like that, after what you saw?" she heard a man question him, thrusting him to the ground. Time seemed to pause as every possibility she could take appeared before her- her legs, her instinct told her to kept running, get away from the danger before her. But her mind told her otherwise.

Fast as she could muster, her legs seemed to burst ahead of her as she ran to the exiled emperor's side and leaped towards the ground in front of him. She felt a sudden blow, painful and crushing, slam against her ribcage as she tumbled and took a blow from someone's foot. The gang members, shocked to see her having taken the hit for him, took a second to register her sudden appearance.

Lelouch's eyes widened in shock and his breathe seemed to fail him as he watched in sheer distraught and panic C.C. get kicked relentlessly in front of him, over and over again. A burning sensation filled his body as he aimlessly tried to get on his feet, the sounds of the woman's gasps for air too horrible to stand. He struggled to get up and fell back at the bunt of someone's shoe.

_So, this is it? This is what I've become?_ He thought to himself, his eyes closed. _I don't want to be this way; I don't want to be powerless like I was before! After everything I was, I can't be this way. And-_

Lelouch's thoughts drifted for a moment, a single second, _And what about C.C.? _

C.C. raised her arms, shielding her head, when suddenly the blows came to a stop. She peered up to the man standing above her as he laughed whole-heartedly, and the distant yells of the rest of the gang. "Look at that," he told her, "you're boyfriend just ran off like a mutt- a damn dog, with his tail between his legs. What a weakling,"

He reached for his jacket pocket, and C.C. turned her gaze back for a moment, to see Lelouch far away, his mouth moving as he stood in the middle of a circle of men. In returning her focus onto the man in front of her, her heart skipped a beat as he held a gun firmly in his hand, aiming at the previous object of her attention, and pulled the trigger. She jumped to her feet in an instant, and felt the familiar yet always shocking sensation of the bullet's impact. She fell to her knees in front of the man and hit the floor, her blood spreading out in front of her.

_Where am I hit?_ She wondered to herself disdainfully. Far away, somewhere she could no longer distinguish in her state, she heard a loud sound- the echoes of bullets firing in unison. She felt her mouth quiver, and her eyes begin to water- _Lelouch, you couldn't run away in time? _

* * *

C.C. opened her eyes slightly, feeling warmth different than that of being drenched in her own blood. "C.C., wake up!" she heard a voice command her, a voice full of desperation and grief. "Please, wake up- you cant die this way, remember? You have to die smiling, remember our deal?"

She opened her eyes a bit more, enough to see Lelouch, vague and blurred, but still there, staring back at her. She smiled slightly to see him in one piece and shuddered in pain. She wanted to hold his hand, or touch his hair, or make contact with him somehow, but found herself too tired to make the effort. Besides, she thought, her arms felt so heavy, so much so that she wondered if she was strong enough to move them from her sides, where they hung so lazily.

"You can't leave me, C.C.," he told her, as she felt his arms tightened around her body. "Not you too, not you, after I've lost everyone. Shirley, Rollo, Suzaku, even Nunnally- I've lost everyone, but not you. I cant lose _you_."

In her delirium, she nodded her head. She didn't know why, she knew it didn't make sense, she just nodded and nodded, her eyes tightly shut and her grip on reality weakening. "Don't die on me! Don't you die on me, too!" she heard him say, now stronger, almost angry.

"I can't let you die, after you gave your life for mine! I can't let you die, after all you've done for me, so don't die, damn it, don't die!"

C.C. nodded, weakly, and opened her eyes as much as she could. She knew she should have been surprised, yet it was so exhausting to feel anything at the moment. She knew she should have gasped, or raised her eyebrows, or widened her eyes, or done anything to express disbelief, but she couldn't. Partly because she was so tired, all she wanted to do was sleep and put an end to her discomfort. And partly because she long since expected to once again see his eyes, which were normally such a beautiful and profound violet color, dyed red, with a V-shaped image, similar to that of a bird. She closed her eyes and exhaled as he pulled her close to him, drowning out the growing sounds of sirens with his rapid heartbeat.

* * *

Okay, I'm going to say this right off the bat- I am not good with "action" scenes. Honestly, I've had no practice on them and avoid them at all costs, but I felt that C.C. and Lelouch's adventure in this fictional story called for this twist of events. When I write, I like to let the characters live in mind, and instead of my controlling them and what happens, I just let it roll with a vague idea of what the future of the story will hold. I wasn't planning on adding something like this, but it just seemed to happen, so all I can do is sit back and see where I take me, if that makes any sense.

Also, for everyone left with unanswered questions, I'll answer them soon enough. I also want to clarify that the explanations of the Code and Geass and all that jazz isn't rooted from the story, where many things are left unanswered, but from what I'm trying to make believable and fitting. Just to let you know, when I make these guidelines and rules and stuff, I'm really thinking every possible thing out to make sure it can fit as though it belonged in the original storyline.

I'm trying hard, so please leave me a review sometimes to tell me how I'm doing and what I can do better! Well, I hope you enjoyed this chapter, thank you so much for reading and God bless!


	4. Reprimanded

To Die So I Can Be Born Again

By Tsadde

Chapter Four: Reprimanded

"_You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I have lived through this horror, I can take the next thing that comes along.'"_

_-Eleanor Roosevelt_

A drop of blood streamed down Lelouch's face as he held his companion's heavy body closer to him, looking across their home's wooden floors, stained with blood. The sirens were still loud outside, and he has just barely managed to sneak C.C. into their home before any eyes could see her. In all honesty, Lelouch was not sure why there was a need to hide her body, but quickly came to a vague suspicion that her body, which was under such supernatural tendencies of immortality, Geass, even the relaying of memories, should never be examined by the eyes of a figure of authority- a doctor, a police officer, anyone, he thought, could perhaps notice something odd and examine her corpse to find something non-human. At least, that's what he irrationally imagined, coming to that desperate conclusion despite of the lack of reinforcing evidence.

He sat down on the floor, the youthful looking woman cradled in his arms. He felt his eyes water, once again, as he stared down at her face. How could someone who had just faced such a tragic demise look so peaceful? So serene? He felt the sobs he had been trying to avoid raise up his throat, and his tears seemed to race- one against the other in a competition to see which could fall down his face first, and land on C.C.'s.

_What do I do now? _He asked himself, _what am I supposed to do now? How am I supposed to explain this? What am I going to do without her? _

The image of where he previously stood stayed imprinted in his mind, despite his distractions. He remembered looking down at the floor, where their attackers had surrounded him, watching numbly as their blood spread across the concrete floor. His eyes, slowly, almost by their own accord, met a distant figure on the floor- the man who had grabbed C.C., in the same state as them, laying face down in a pool of scarlet. _Ah,_ he remembered thinking to himself; _I did this, didn't I?_

Lelouch looked at C.C.'s fingers, as he wrapped his fingers around her hands. "Is _this_ what Geass does, C.C.?" he asked her, "I thought I could fix things with this power and yet, here I am, back to what I used to be."

He looked down at her, unable to bring himself to any more words. Now, he simply wanted to shut his eyes, in imitation of his accomplice, and fall into a state of oblivious peace. _That's all I need,_ he thought, as he laid C.C. down on the floor, softly. He parted her forest-green hair neatly, and laid her arms neatly on her sides. As he blankly stared at her figure, and her long hair that spread so beautifully against the wooden floors, he felt the strong sensation of sheer exhaust as he laid on the floor, not bothering to get to his room. He'd leave all the thinking for later- right now, he only wanted to rest- right now all that mattered was sleep.

* * *

Lelouch was not used to waking up to warmth. Often times, almost always, he would wake up shivering. It was almost a curse that he would awaken cold, either from taking his sheets off in his sleep, or leaving his bedroom fan on, often a combination of both. This happened so often it was no longer something he paid much attention to- it was almost a fact of life; everytime he would awake from his sleep during those schoolday mornings, he would be cold.

Lelouch was also not used to the smell of women's shampoo, or conditioner, or whatever that flower-scented smell was. Like most people, he would wake up feeling tierd, or grumpy, or fully refreshed, but being overwhelmed by such a good smell as he would regain conciousness was not a common occurrence. He knew very well that girl's were supposed to smell good, and he often would read for school assignments or flipping through Nunnally's books the sweet nothings that boy's would express to describe the smell of the girls of whom they were infatuated. He'd often roll his eyes, or turn the page apathetically, as he found himself completely unintrested on what seemed to be such a strifle waste of text. Yet while he spent so much time with girls, like Shirley or Nunally or even Kallen, he had never picked up any fragrance like the one he was noticing currently.

Lazily, finding himself suprisingly comfertable, he slowly opened his eyes and stretched his arms out slightly. Though hazy at first, he noticed a blur of green intercepting his gaze of what was infront of him. Suddenly, he came to his senses and realized that the warmth, the scent, and the noticable wieght against his chest all came from a single source- the once dead C.C..

"_Wha-what?_ C.C.? _C.C.?_" he asked the sleeping girl in disbelief. He grabbed her by the shoulders and stared amazingly at her face, and soon enough began to shake her as if to see if she was for real. "C.C.? You're here? How? When? C.C.?"

Her face, once so peaceful, distorted into a face of sheer annoyance as she frowned, eyes still closed tightly and arms limp. He looked at her, slouched over, hair in a mess and damp, dressed soley in one of his shirts- as was her custom- and face full of lively color, despite her paleness. He couldn't believe it- the sickly shade of white that had befalled her, the cold feel of her smooth skin, the deep red color that stained her clothing, all had changed so suddenly. He found himself impulsivly wrapping his arms around the girl, as though to hand on to the moment and assure it wouldn't escape from reality.

She slumped down against him, obviously tierd. "Leave me alone," she mumbled, almost whispered, "I want to sleep."

Now, his feelings of awe and baffaled happiness turned sour, becoming utterly annoyed by the girl's clear unconcern for anything but the time she could be spending sleeping. He strengthened his grip on the girl's shoulders and attempted to move her away from himself, despite her strong grip around his torso. "C.C., stop acting silly and get up," he commanded, unaffected by her whines.

"Stop bothering me,"

"Get up, then!"

"Then leave me alone,"

"Get up and I will!"

C.C.'s eyes, once tightly shut, were now opened in a narrow, annoyed fashion. She gave Lelouch a horrible gaze, enough to kill if looks could do so. She moved away from him and curled under the bedsheet covers that were just barely covering her hips, mumbeling angrily.

"when _you _wake up from getting shot, then you talk," she told him.

"that's exactly what we need to talk about, so get up!"

"No, Lelouch, this is the part where your supposed to say 'sleeping with you was very enjoyable,'"

"_What is wrong with you?_" he asked her, voice shrill with embarrasment.

"Don't be so perverse, Lelouch, you know very well what I mean,"

"I'm not perverse, you just have an irritating habit of saying things that can be misinterpreted in the worst ways,"

The blanket bulged and shook as C.C. found her way out of the sea of cotton, and her head popped out of the mess to look at the young man sitting nearby. "So," she asked in a mock-cute voice, full of mockery, "your telling me it wasn't _enjoyable_, Lelouch?"

"Stop joking like that!"

"Oh, calm down already, your running out of shades of red to turn."

Lelouch exhaled, clearly annoyed and looked away from C.C.'s teasing face. She narrowed her eyes in response and chuckled slightly, only before returning to her wool laberiythn, under the blankets and sheets that once neatly adorned the boy's bed.

* * *

By the time Lelouch had managed to drag C.C. out of his bed, he came to the realization that, along with his patience, clothes was scarce. She could no longer wear the dress she had on previously, now darkily stained with blood and in shabby condition. C.C. had also gotten rid of the staightjacket she so often wore before their journey, as well. It became abundantly clear that it would be necessary to get her more clothes, despite his agitation. The last thing he felt like doing after the previous epsiode was go into a woman's clothing store and buy dresses- God forbid people got the wrong impression.

Now presentable, he headed torwards the door, dismissing C.C. for slimply being asleep in bed, more than probably having had gone back to bed despite his efforts. As his hand wrapped around the door knob, he flinched as a feminine voice called out to him,

"where are you going, Lelouch?"

"I'm going out to buy a few things."

"Can I come?"

"Thank you, but I'd perfer to go alone. I should start finding my way around this place, anyways."

"So, what are you going to buy? groceries?"

The gentle, subdued kind of tone that she used to ask him that immediately caught Lelouch's attention. He studied her stare, unable to completely descipher it, as always. He still needed to talk to her about so many things, and ask so many questions, but he would have to postpone that for a later time.

Giving her a small smile, he shook his head and opened the door. "No, not groceries. I'll see you later, okay?"

C.C. nodded, a similare expression on her face. Time seemed to take a small, abrupt pause as they stood still and looked at each other for a moment, both recollecting on the things they had gone through together, before Lelouch closed the door and left their shared home.

* * *

Lelouch fumbled around through his pockets, looking for the key to his home, despite the many bags he was carrying and the two large boxes of pizza he had bought for C.C.. Finally, he gripped the correct key, but his triumphal moment was utterly destroyed as the pizzas slipped downwards, leaving him to awkwardly and quickly fumble to catch them. Succesful, he let out a tierd exhale. He had left home roughly around sunset, and returned at about nine, and he felt just enough exhaustation to prove his busy day.

Turning the key in the doorknob, he sighed, tierd, but was struck by a moment of realization as to what he was doing. Here he was, entering a new home in a new town, on a completely different area of Japan. Though a bit saddening, he was reminded that he and his accomplice had somehow managed to pull through, and, with that thought, a smile became evident on his face. Seemingly out of no where, he remembered something he had overheard C.C. read aloud, one night, while walking to his room: _"The stone which the builders rejected has become our foundation. This was the Lord's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes. This is the day the Lord has made for us, we will rejoice and be glad in it."_

With the image of her reading on her bed, in a dimly lit room, Lelouch opened the door. To his surprise, he found C.C. laying on their floor, reading the very book he was thinking of, unaware of his prescense. He studied her for a moment- the image of her long hair vieling her shoulders and much of her torso, the liesurily movements of her swaying leg in the air, how her mind was so completely absorbed. With a clear of his throat, and a silent farewell to the marvelous image, he awoke C.C. from her daze and she turned her gaze from the letters she read carefully and faithfully to his violet eyes.

"You bought me pizza?" she asked, pleasantly surprised. Lelouch nodded and set the boxes down on one of the only pieces of furniture in their home, the table.

"But first, I need you to try some clothes on,"

C.C. raised her eyebrows. "_Clothes?_ That's what you went out to buy?"

"Well, I can't have you walking around like that in public, right?"

"I thought we had to save money for necessities,"

"Your not walking around half-dressed in public _is_ a necessity," he responded. She lifted herself up off the floor and walked over to him, who, in return, hand her two of the three large bags he was holding.

She peered down at the bags. "Why did you get me so much clothing?"

He shrugged, "you need it. I still have a good amount of clothes from beforehand, so I really didn't need to buy much for myself."

C.C. continued to peer inside the bag for a prolonged moment. Lelouch frowned, "what, you don't like what I picked out already?"

She didn't remove her gaze from the bags she was holding as she shook her head slowly, "No, that's not it at all."

Soon enough, C.C. went to another room of the house and began to try on the clothing, after much nagging from her counterpart. Down the corridor of their home, on the bathroom door, was a full length mirror Lelouch took a bite out of his pizza as he stared at his accomplice, measuring his words. "I really don't see how that pink one 'didn't look good' on you."

"Well, I'm not that enthusiatic on the color," she told him, crossly.

Lelouch rolled his eyes and took a sip of soda as C.C. spun in front of the mirror slowly, examining herself. "I thought it was nice."

"Can I have pizza now?"

"No, try on the other shirt now," Lelouch commanded, to which she only groaned in reply. He understood she wasn't being unappreciative, but it _was_ C.C. he was dealing with, afterall, and her desire for pizza was growing with each passing moment. With a sigh, she left his side and went to the bathroom.

Lelouch coughed as a new bite of pizza went down through his throat the wrong way, possibly in response from the series of odd and violent slams and thumps he could hear from the bathroom. Wondering wether or not he wanted to brave the answer to his curiosity, he cleared his throat and let time pass for a few moments. Now well aware that the sounds were more than probably not going to dissapear on their own, he fourced himself off his chair and walked torwards the bathroom.

"C.C., are you alright?" he asked through the door, only to get silence in response. He called out her name only to get a muffled noise in response and a loud _thump!_

Now becoming somewhat worried, he knocked on the door. "I'm coming in, okay?" he told her as he held the bathroom doorknob. He twisted and jerked but no use, the door was locked. Lelouch could hear more muffled grunts, and now, heartbeating, a thought popped into his mind- _those gang members!_

_Could it be possible that they sneaked into the bathroom window? _He asked himself, in a shocked and frantic frenzy of thought. _Or snuck into the house while I was gone and managed to stay unnoticed?_

Running to the living room, he grabbed the nearest knife and returned to the bathroom. "C.C., stay calm, okay? Just keep making noise so I know your still okay!" he commanded as he fiddled with the knife against the lock. In a burst of adrenalian and speed, he quickly twisted the knife about until he heard the door let out a small _click!_ "C.C.!" he cried out, opening the door. He was uncertain of what he would see, but that was the least of his worries- right now, his priority was purely defense.

However, he did not expect to see what was before him. He stood there, limp and still, unsure of how to react. There he was, knife in hand and out of breath, and before him was C.C., twisted around in the shower curtains, her legs (and, though Lelouch tried to ignore it, butt) poking out from the bottom of the bathtub. Whatever had happened, C.C. must have somehow fallen in the tub in a struggle, bringing the curtains down with her. He exhaled, remembering how exhausted he was, and smiled slightly, one eyebrow raised quizically.

"How'd you manage to do this to yourself, hmm?" he asked her as he carefully unwrapped the curtains from her and attempted to help her out of the tub. Panting, she glared at him angrilly-  
"This shirt! This stupid shirt!" she exclaimed, her arms pinned awkwardly against herself from the tight capture of a much too small shirt. Lelouch, attempting to ignore the clear exposure of her bra by the shirt that she attempted to take off but, obviously, couldn't, helped her out of the shirt and paid special attention to her long, now somewhat tangled hair. Finally free, C.C. took in a breath and exaggeratedly exhaled, agitated. Lelouch couldn't help himself, and let out a laugh at her expense and C.C., though initally frowning, soon began to chuckle at her own situation herself.

"I'm guessing it was too small?" he asked her, holding the stretched shirt in his hands. "You really got yourself into a mess,"

C.C. rolled her eyes, "it's your fault for grossly underestimating my body measurments."

Lelouch's smile soon turned into an embarrased frown as he, taking in the words, found himself very much aware that his accomplice didn't have a shirt on. He handed her a towel and avoided her gaze, making sure not to make eye contact.

"_Please_. Don't go out and buy me clothes if your going to get all flustered like a little boy over the slightest mention of my having a body," she told him matter-of-factly as she wrapped the towel around her torso.

In response, Lelouch quickly turned to her. "Don't say things like that, when it's perfectly normal to feel uncomfertable! _You're the_ one that doesn't have a problem going around half-naked all the time!"

Though he would never admit it to anyone, nor himself, Lelouch's eyes trailed down and noticed something. Her bra, which he could see slightly whereas his partner has failed to cover some of her chest, was stained with a dark reddish-brown. He frowned and took a breath. Both of them on the floor, he reached out for her and lifted her towel up slightly. Now meeting C.C.'s gaze, he decided it was now the time for his questions to be answered.

"C.C., I need you to explain to me what's going on," he told her with a strong resolve in his voice. C.C. looked down to where his hands had been, and, realizing what he had seen, frowned.

"I'm not sure I can tell you everything you want to hear,"

"It's not what I want to hear, it's what I _need to know_," he told her. "Why am I still alive? More importantly, why are _you_ still alive? If I received your Code, you should be dead right now. I know you died- I felt you, I saw all the blood. You couldn't have survived. And why did you give me your Code in the first place?"

C.C. crossed her legs and looked at him in the eyes, measuring her words before speaking. "Like you said," she began, "that shot should have killed me. It didn't because I cannot die."

"How? I thought you-"

C.C. shook her head, "I never gave you my Code, Lelouch."

Lelouch rested his head againsnt the palm of his hand, thinking back. "You told Alkaid that you had given me your Code, and if you hadent, how could I have survived the Zero Requiem?"

"I lied to Alkaid," she simply stated.

"Why?"

"Because niether you nor I can tell others that you do not have my Code."

"Why not?"

C.C. inhaled and shifted, crossing her legs. "When we were attacked, what did you do to those people?"

Lelouch looked away, displeasment obvious in his face. "I used my Geass against them," he murmured.

"When you have obtained the Code, you are not only oblivious to the use of Geass against you, but are rendered unable to attain a Geass, even if you attempt to make a contract with someone willing to give you one."

Lelouch sighed, "you _do_ realize you just giving me more unanswered questions?"

C.C. stayed silent for a moment and stared at Lelouch blankly, pausing her monolouge. After an awkward moment of Lelouch feeling idiotic because of her stare, she continued. "A Code is generally obtained by the user from the giver of the Geass. By doing so, the user is no longer able to use Geass, and thus the roles are somewhat switched, whereas the user is now a potential 'giver,'" she explained.

"While I did not give you my Code, it is certain that you somehow did attain one, whereas you are alive and standing before my eyes, even after the Zero Requiem that should have killed you, as you had planned. However, the fact that I still have my Code, and that you are still fully able to use your Geass, has given me reason to believe that two things may have happened," she continued.

She held up two fingers before him, "the first possibility is that you did not attain a Code, but a miracle had somehow occurred and you were brought back to life. Highly unlikely, but plausible in comparison to the second possibily. The second possibility is that you have reached a level of power beyond imagining, a power that only three people in the entire world, in all of _history_, have obtained, that is, the '_Code Geass.'_"

* * *

Okay, I want to first say that I am super sorry (to the 200th power!) that it took so long for me to update. Family issues, State Exams, school and a whole bunch of crap got in the way of my finishing this chapter to the point where I would try to sneak in some time on my school computers just to get something done. I planned on making this longer, and have the entire explanation for Code Geass on this chapter, but it would take to long and who do I think I am to keep such beautiful and wonderful readers waiting, if you havent already given up hope on me? Well, I hope you enjoy this chapter- even though I'm not to proud of it, and now with my state exams this week, expect to get much longer and better chapters because I will officially be on summer vacation starting this Monday!

Well, thank you so much for reading and God bless you! If anything, feel free to contact me and thank you so much in advance for the reviews, even if I get just one that's enough to please me. Thanks again and God bless!


	5. Anaphora

To Die So I Can Be Born Again

By Tsadde

Chapter Five: Anaphora

"_Oh the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are — chaff and grain together — certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and with the breath of kindness blow the rest away."_

_-Dinah Mulock_

Lelouch gazed at his green haired companion over the old wooden table that adorned the lonely, empty dining room. As she took a bite of the pizza and chewed painstakingly slowly, Lelouch impatiently waited for her to finish her breakfast. He apathetically looked over her, making sure her physical appearance was a neat and normal looking one: clothes unstained, hair untangled, a pair of shoes that weren't two different colors. He had woken her up early and, though it was a struggle, managed to make her look presentable. After their speaking the night before, they both agreed that it was necessary to find jobs as soon as possible, whereas the little money they had collected was rapidly disappearing.

C.C. noticed his gaze and frowned, "stop rushing me," she commanded.

"How am I rushing you? I'm not even speaking!"

"Your attitude and your face are suffice," she remarked. "Now, stop being in such a hurry, we'll get downstairs on time."

"Not if we continue at the pace you're going," he replied.

C.C. took a deliberately slow bite out of the pizza she was eating, and chewed even slower. After a long pause, she took a breath and sighed. "You're almost ruining the taste," she complained.

Lelouch rolled his eyes and then noticed something- her shirt had an extra button. He raised an eyebrow as he studied the blouse and realized that the article of clothing did not have an additional button, but that C.C. had buttoned her shirt incorrectly. He leaned over the table, impulsively, and stretched his arms over to her torso. C.C.'s eyebrows rose in a surprised manner in response to the young man's unbuttoning her shirt, and held her arms awkwardly to her sides in mid-air. Lelouch's eyes caught her stare, and he wavered in response, his eyes darting away, then returning to the work at hand. Once he finished with the last button, C.C. exhaled and bit into her pizza slice once more.

"You never get tired of fixing things, don't you, Lelouch?"

Lelouch passed his hand through his hair and frowned. "You shirt was messed up. Just because you can stand looking like a slob doesn't mean everyone else can stand looking at it."

"No," C.C. corrected, "_you_ can't stand looking at it. You've always been like that- any time you see something out of place, crooked, or in any way wrong you have to fix it. Do you think I hadn't noticed the way you'd always fold or put away my clothes the moment I took it off? The very first time I spent the night with you, when I laid in your bed after having met your sister, you immediately began to organize my clothes."

"Instead of complaining you should thank me,"

"Instead of being so highly esteemed of yourself you should really look into the term 'obsessive compulsive disorder.'"

Lelouch rolled his eyes, unable to find something to respond. He watched as she finished her meal and got up off his seat, stretching slightly as he stared out the window and took in the perfect view of the morning sky. Last night, C.C. promised to speak to him of the Code Geass, but claimed to be to tired to explain at the very moment. He stared at her and wondered to himself why she was so hesitant to explain the situation at hand to him- could she be hiding something? Or, could it be that she was trying to figure things out herself?

His train of thought was interrupted as she stood up and brushed her shirt with her hands, wiping away any crumbs. Then, with a quick sweep of her long, bellowing hair, turned and made for the door- she was ready to go. _Why does she always carry around that kind of attitude about herself?_ He wondered. He walked towards the door with her and made sure that it was locked behind them. They took consecutive steps together, almost in unison, and Lelouch turned to look at her profile- her face was calm, as always. He glanced at his arm, and then back at her, and took notice of how truly pale she was.

She was so thin, and almost colorless if not for her hair, and yet she wasn't frail- when he looked at her, he didn't see the delicacy or frail demeanor he saw in Nunally, while he didn't see the same kind of stubborn, headstrong independent attitude that Kallen carried about herself. It was then, at that moment, that he was overwhelmed by the realization that so much about her was still unknown to him. While he was sure that he knew more about her then many others in her life, he wondered to himself uncertainly if there was ever anyone before him who knew _more._ Somehow, the idea unsettled him, though he was unsure as to why.

As they finished their way down from their home, down a long wooden stairway that aligned against the wall of the old, white building, the two quickly made their way to the bakery of their neighbors and contributors of their home. The bakery was beautiful, though small, it's yellow walls shielded by a brown-tilled roof. Lelouch came to find that though this island of Japan was very much untouched by the war and the outside world, it resembled more of a European town than that of a Japanese one, so much so that a small part of him began to doubt this place could really be part of what was once known as Area Eleven.

"They seemed to have fixed this place up relatively quickly," C.C. remarked in her borderline monotone voice. Lelouch nodded, admitting that the bakery appeared almost as though no such accident as the one they experienced had occurred. Once they opened the door, the two were met with the rich, warm smell of bread and cinnamon, and the gazes of a young woman, probably in her mid or late twenties.

"Oh, hello," she greeted them in a kind and friendly voice, "I was wondering when you two were going to stop by. You've been living here for about a week or so, and I hadn't seen either one of you! I was beginning to wonder if you two were really up there or not!"

Lelouch laughed, his voice somewhat higher in tone, as it was his (unintentional) habit to do so when talking to strangers or people he was meant to be friendly with. "I'm sorry about that, it's been taking us a while to get settled here so it took a while to find the time to get out and greet you and your husband properly," he told her.

She smiled, "Oh, you don't have to apologize, sweetie, it's perfectly understandable. But while we're are it, my name is Nannerell Sakagami, and my husband, Kaiteru, is in the back, taking out our fresh bread from the oven."

Lelouch nodded, then came upon a notion of a thought, "Nannerell, isn't that-"

"A Britannia name?" she suggested, filling in what was his awkward silence.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean pry,"

"No, no, there's no reason to apologize. Yes, I am Britannian. I came here when I was a little girl, but I moved here several years ago and, as you can imagine by my name, married a Japanese man," Nannerell smiled slightly and gazed through the glass window of their bakery for a moment. "Life, I've found, is so much better here, where race and status mean so little. It was almost like a miracle, finding such a wonderful place to live, when back in more urban areas of Japan, racism and violence was such a frequent occurrence."

C.C. nodded, "This place is very separated from the rest of the world, isn't it?"

Nannerell nodded and laughed, "it's almost like a completely different planet!"

Lelouch smiled slightly, "well, from as far as I can tell, I think we will be very happy here." Then, clearing his thoat, he chose to introduce himself, "My name is Lelouch Lamperouge, it's a pleasure to meet you, Nannerell."

C.C. acted in turn, "And my name is C.C.,"

Nannerell smiled. "It's a pleasure to meet both of you. So it's Lelouch and C.C. Lamperouge, then?"

The young man's eyes widened and he felt an immense amount of warmth flood to his face at the misunderstanding. "N-no, it's nothing like that! Rather, you see, it's-"

"We're not married," C.C. cut in coolly, narrowing her eyes at the blabbering person beside her.

The owner of the bakery cocked her head to the side slightly. "Really? Wow, you could have fooled me,"

"How so?" Lelouch asked, unable to make eye contact.

The woman laughed whole-heartedly. "Now, don't go freaking out on me over a little mistake! What I meant was, the atmosphere between you two seems very…_different_ than most people. The fact that I jumped to the assumption that the relationship between you two was an intimate one is probably proof that I am too much of a romantic."

"Though judging by your reaction, I would say something more than friendship is going on," a male voice called out from somewhere in the store that was out of sight. Soon enough, a young Asian man came out, holding out a tray of delicious looking pastries and bread loaves in one hand, and a large pizza pie in the other.

The man grinned at them friendly, and passed his wife a cream puff, which she happily bit in to. "I heard the entire conversation from the oven. It's nice to meet both of you."

Kaiteru placed the trays on the counter before him and began to cut the pie in eight pieces and then, noticing C.C. hungry stare, offered her a slice. C.C.'s eyes widened in response to his suggestion, much to the man's amusement.

"Don't bother saying no, your face said it all," he told her as he passed her a plate.

* * *

Lelouch frowned as he stared at the girl beside him. "I can't believe your eating pizza _again_,"

"It's rude not to accept a kind offer, Lelouch, and pardon me for being hungry"  
"You ate before we got here!"

C.C. waved her hand at him in response, clearly not willing to continue talking, and instead chose to bite into her pizza slice.

Nannerell laughed, "You two are just precious!" she exclaimed.

Lelouch, who had been drinking from a cup of water, soon enough began to

choke, only making the older pair laugh, obviously amused by his reaction. He then noticed a large crack on the surface of the table they sat by, and recalled the incident. "You two fixed this place up rather quickly since the accident," he told them.

Both of their faces saddened. "Yes, we meant to talk to you about that," Nannerell told Lelouch. "The police told me that by the time they had gotten here, the place was a mess. They suspected that a few men who were part of a gang came here and broke in, possibly attempting to steal our possessions. They also told us that they think there was a fight between the gang members because by the time they got to the scene of the crime…"

Kaiteru placed a hand on his wife's shoulder, noticing her discomfort. "We were out of town, visiting an aunt who had just given birth, and managed to not be here during the event. In fact, we arrived here about three hours afterward, but we were worried about both of you, we heard a rumor that other people were in the store when the crime took place, though the police found no evidence of other people in the store."

_So, they don't know that we were in here. Perfect. If I hadn't been careful, they probably would have found out about C.C.'s injury, and that would have definitely been a difficult situation to explain,_ Lelouch thought to himself. He cleared his throat and looked at both them with an expression of relief, "There's nothing to worry about. Luckily, the two of us were both doing some grocery shopping at the time, and when we reached here and noticed the group, we dropped everything we had and made sure to run out of sight to safety."

Nannerell nodded quickly, "Yes, we noticed a couple of bags of groceries on the floor by your home, but by that time they were spoiled. Luckily, we saw a grocery list and we went out a bought the things on the list for you, and a little extra. Kaiteru, please go get them, will you?"

The man nodded and quickly fetched them. When he returned, he was carrying about twice as many bags as Lelouch and C.C. had initially bought, much to their surprise.

"You really didn't have to do such a thing," C.C. told them, surprised by their act of kindness, "this is much more than we even bought ourselves."

Nannerell shook her head. "Now, now, we put you two in a dangerous situation and even though no one got hurt, that was not something you both had to experience. Take this is an apology, okay?"

As Kaiteru placed the bags on the floor and sat down, C.C. offered them a kind smile, "Thank you very much."

Lelouch, after thanking them as well, cleared his throat and chose to address a new issue. "Since the two of us are new here, neither of us have yet to hold a job here and our money is scarce. We were wondering if you two knew of any place that was willing to hire,"

Kaiteru glanced at his wife, and she smiled in turn. "Well," he told them, "we've been looking for someone to help us around the shop, and maybe carry out some deliveries, if any of you two are interested."

Nannerell nodded, "we definitely need some assistance around here, considering how I'm pregnant. Soon enough, I wont be able to be as active around here as I'd like to be, so if any of you two are willing to help that'd be perfect."

"C.C., you'd be willing to take that, wouldn't you?" Lelouch asked, turning to her.

She looked up at him with concerned eyes, "If I take it, where will you work? You should take this one, and I'll find some other place."

Lelouch turned to the married couple. "C.C. will gladly take the job," he assured them.

"Lelo-" C.C. began, but found herself interrupted by Kaiteru.

"C.C. we'd be glad to have you here. The pay will be good, even though you'll have to do quite of bit of running back and forth for deliveries, but the hours are good, and if you want, we'll throw in free pizza for you. How'd you like that?"

"Yes, I'd love to take the job" she responded without a single trace of hesitance. Kaiteru and Nannerell laughed in turn, and Lelouch found himself chuckling at her behavior as well.

"Actually, Lelouch, I believe there is a bookstore two blocks away from here that is looking for someone to hire. It's quite popular, so you'd probably get a wholesome amount of money working there. It's a bit of a hard position to attain, since so many people would be willing to work there, but you seem to be an intelligent and reasonable person, so I cant imagine why you would have any difficulty getting the job."

Lelouch smiled, "thank you. I'll definitely look into that, and hopefully be able to get the job." He glanced at C.C. who was staring at him in an odd manner, one which he was unable to distinguish- she seemed almost proud. "With these jobs, though, we'll both get to know most of the town, wont we?"

She nodded and took the last bite of her pizza. "Yes, we'll become fully adjusted in no time."

* * *

The next morning, the two were ready to eat breakfast, both dressed and ready to work. Luckily, after having spent some time with Nannerell and Kaiteru, the foursome walked to the bookstore and after the woman's energetic improvement, she convinced the manger to hire Lelouch, thus landing him the well-coveted job. The night before, he and C.C. had finished putting each item in its respective location, and were now familiar with the kitchen. Both deciding to eat from food they were given by the owners of the bakery before their leaving to their home, Lelouch brought their plates of food to the table. C.C. was sitting by the table, staring out the window, lost in thought, and it noticing this Lelouch smiled sympathetically. "There was something I noticed before, though, that we weren't about to do much about," he told them. He took out two Cheese-kun mugs, one obviously new, and the other broken, the grip where one's hand was meant to hold in three cracked pieces, joined together and glued to the cup. C.C. looked up at him in surprise, her hands gently and slowly reaching out for the once broken cup.

"Actually, the new one is for you," he told her. In response, she glanced up at him quickly and then back at the cup, and wrapped her fingers around it.  
"I want this one," she told him softly.

"Even though it's broken?"

"Especially because it's broken," she replied.

Lelouch kept his silence, finding nothing more to add to the situation and they both began to eat. As he chewed, he glanced over at C.C. who was peacefully cutting the sausage on her plate. The mug he had given her seemed to be placed closer to her than the plate, as though to keep it by her side. Smiling slightly, he found himself happy to having had given her something that pleased her. _I wonder,_ he thought to himself, _is this how it feels to live with someone?_

Lelouch frowned and mentally kicked himself. _What a stupid thought!_ He told himself, _of course it is, he is _living _with her for the time being._ Even so, despite his reply to the initial notion, Lelouch attempted to ignore a small thought that crept up on him, stating that the first idea was not one to be taken to literal affect, but, rather, to be taken to a different meaning. Lelouch shook the idea out of his head and took a drink from him mug; _I probably didn't get enough sleep. I'm tired, that's why I'm having such silly thoughts. _

Once both of them were done, he and C.C. went down the stairs and got ready to depart on their separate ways.

"Don't get lost," she warned, half-jokingly.

Lelouch rolled his eyes. "Don't eat everything in the store," he responded in turn.

She smiled slightly and turned to enter the bakery, only to pause and look up at the morning sky. "Have a nice day," she told him softly.

Lelouch suppressed a smile, wondering why he felt such happiness in response to those words. "You too," he told her, taking his first steps away from her, "see you later."

C.C. watched him go for a moment and unlocked the door to the bakery. Taking in the peaceful silence, and warm smell of cinnamon and bread, she got to work- rolling up the sleeves to the blue dress her partner had so recently bought for her, and tying up her hair in a loose and messy bun, she turned the oven on low heat and began to mop the floor. Nannerell walked in, yawning, and was surprised to see C.C. at work.

"Good morning, C.C.! You sure don't kid around, huh? Already working, and the sun isn't even completely out yet," she remarked.

The green haired woman nodded. "Good morning. Yes, I wanted to clean up a bit before people started coming in."

"Thank you, but don't stress yourself too much, okay? Did Lelouch already head off for work?"

She nodded in response, "yes."

"Ah. He's a very kind person, isn't he?"

She nodded once more. "Yes, he's always had good intentions,"

"He looks like it, and, for that matter, so do you."

C.C. looked at Nannerell as she stretched and walked away. A phone rang from a distance and C.C. could just barely hear the woman answer the phone. When she returned to C.C.'s side she met her stare with a grin.

"Congratulations," she told her, "you have your first customer!"

* * *

The immortal girl made her way down the sidewalk, carrying a basket of loaves of bread, apples and two large jars of honey. As she began to reach her destination, she took in the sight of the familiar roads. The home ahead was one she knew far too well, the house of a young man she made a contract with many, many years ago.

She began to recall the young man who went by the name Allegro. He was only about sixteen, with golden hair and kind gray eyes and with his thin and fit figure; he was a person whom had caught the attention of many young girls at the time. His Geass, she recalled, was to take possession of people's will for short instances of time, which he used to help his dying mother, finding himself far too poor and under privileged to help her without the Geass' aid.

Though the works of charity he influenced people to make ultimately aided his family, and gave his mother the medical attention he needed, he refused to the use the power after having attained it. She chose to stay by his side a while longer, to assure he'd be okay after her departure, finding she had spent too much time in a single area, until he became engaged with a young woman named Annaleis he shared much in common with.

_He was one of the only people I have ever met to control their Geass so profoundly, that the power didn't consume them into continued use, _she thought to herself. She was now approaching his home; only slightly different from the last time she had entered the building. Knocking on the door, she patiently waited for a response, and was startled by the person whom answered the door- a young man, small and thin, with dark hair and gray eyes- exactly like the object of her remembrance moments prior.

"Hello, you're the new delivery person for Guchokipan Bakery service, right?"

She nodded, after a moment of hesitance. "Yes, I have a delivery for…" she glanced at the paper, "Crescendo?"

The young man nodded and smiled, "Yes, that's me. I have to sign something, don't I? Please come inside, and I'll do that right away."

C.C. carefully took a step inside the house, finding the structure identical to her memories. Though frames and furniture differed, of course, the staircase, the hallways and doorways were still the same. She set the basket on the dinning room table and took out a small book, meant for signatures to assure the delivery was made to complete satisfaction. She glanced at Crescendo, watching him as he put on a light jacket and a black hat over his head. With a yawn, he glanced over at her and gave her a friendly smile, only to be met with her widened, surprised eyes.

"Do you want something to drink? Or to eat?"

"No, thank you, I already ate."

"I see," he told her, walking to her side and taking the book she handed to him. Before signing, he caught her staring at the many portraits on the wall. "My great-great-great grandmother painted them, or so I'm told," he told her, signing the book and writing a quick comment. "Do you like them?"

C.C. nodded, "they're very beautiful."

The young man smiled at her and then walked to the corner of the room, by a rather large painting hanging on the wall. Beckoning her over with a wave of his hand, he stretched his arm and waited for her to come to his side.

"This, apparently, was her favorite painting," he told her. "Apparently, this is her as a child, and my great-great-great grandfather and their-"

C.C. looked at him, startled by his surprised and shocked expression. Taking her eyes off of him, she looked up at the portrait- It was a painting of Allegro, Annalies and someone else- she unsure of who it was, as the sunlight gleamed on the painting and made it hard to see. Stepping back, she took in the whole painting and silently gasped, her heart skipping a beat. The painting was beautiful, and wonderfully made- an amazingly created illustration of Allegro, his wife, and the immortal girl herself.

* * *

Phew! Finally done! You wont believe how many drafts of this chapter I had to make- either it had way too much explanation, or too little, or it just didn't flow properly. Even so, I hope you liked this chapter and my writing- hopefully, it wasn't too boring or too bad in length, be it too long or too short. I've decided I want to write long chapters because you all are such awesome readers and reviews, and longer chapters would probably please you. Sadly, I had to cut this chapter short because there is something of relative importance coming up and if I wrote it in this chapter, I don't think the story would flow too well as a whole.

Also, a small notation- when C.C. remarks on Lelouch's tidying up habits, I want to mention that it was actually based off the series. Throughout the anime, Lelouch is constantly folding her clothes once she takes it off, or fixing things, and the creators did this on purpose. They wanted Lelouch to be a busybody kind of person, I'd suppose, but he apparently doesn't like messes. Kind of weird, don't you think?

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and stay tuned for the next one to come- I promise, it'll be good! There's gonna be a lot of suggestions towards the relationship between C.C. and Lelouch and even an attempt at something by the ladies man himself (cant tell you what, though!) so I hope you enjoy it and anticipate it. Thanks for reading and God bless!


	6. Alexithymia

To Die So I Can Be Born Again

By Tsadde

Chapter Six: Alexithymia

"_Submit to love faithfully and it gives a person joy. It intoxicates, it envelopes, it isolates. It creates fragrance in the air, ardour from coldness, it beautifies everything around it." _

_-Leos J. Czechoslovakia_

Lelouch reached the door of the bookstore and took a deep breath as he wrapped his fingers around the doorknob and pulled. Not surprisingly, at this time in the morning the bookstore was relatively empty, being occupied only by three or four workers. He made his way to where the register and two workers were standing, and cleared his throat.

"Hello, I was told that I had to speak to someone named Kazuya,"

Of the two, a young girl with short, shoulder length black hair and glasses responded in a soft voice, "Y-yes, that's me. You are Lelouch, the new employee, right?"

"Yes, it's nice to meet you, Kazuya,"

The timid girl nodded and raised her hand near her mouth, obviously a habit of hers. "Yes, I'm Kazuya, and this is my sister, Kotoru. It's nice to meet you to too. You don't have to wear a uniform or anything, but we have to make an ID for you."

The girl next to her, with long hair of the same hue and a much more outgoing demeanor raised her hand and gave him a thumbs up. "I'll help you with that part, just come with me to the back so I can take your picture, 'kay?"

Lelouch nodded and gave them a friendly smile. He wondered to himself how C.C. was doing, but remained alert and followed the girl in front of him quickly. As she led him to the back room, she looked for the key to unlock the door before them and turned to him as she searched.

"So," she began, "your new here right?"

"Yeah, I guess word gets around pretty quickly here, huh?"

The girl rolled her eyes. "Of course, it's such a small town everyone knows everything about everybody."

"You don't seem to like that too much," he remarked.

"Nah," she sighed, "You're from the more urban parts of Japan, I'm sure. That must be so much fun- all the people, the packed streets, all the tall buildings and stores- city life must be so much better than this boring place!"

Lelouch shrugged as he noticed her fitting the correct key into the lock of the door. "Well, each place has it's own benefits, I'd suppose. Back were I lived wasn't so bad, but there were a lot of displeasing aspects to it that you don't address here,"

"Like what?"

"Like the war."

"Ah," she frowned. "I'm sorry. Over here, it's so easy to forget a war has just finished. Even now, it's too soon to be so ignorant or careless about it,"

Lelouch shook his head and forced a small laugh, "No, it's okay, maybe I'm too serious about some things,"

"Oh, I thought maybe your mentioning about it meant you lost someone because of the war,"

Lelouch looked up at the ceiling, measuring his words. "I have," he told her slowly, "when there's a war going on around you, you're bound to lose something."

Opening the door and walking in, Kotoru opened a nearby drawer and grabbed a camera. "Okay, Lelouch, stand over there by that wall," she told him.

He nodded and made his way to the place she pointed out in the room, "Okay, like this?"

Kotoru grinned and raised the camera to her eye. "Perfect," she told him, "now give me a big smile!"

Dissatisfied with the small smile he forced himself to make, she lowered the camera slightly. "Come on, smile like you mean it!"

Lelouch laughed lightly, "but I hate taking pictures,"

"So? Think of something that makes you happy- like a piece of cake! Or try to imagine how much money you'll earn," she suggested. Then, with a sly smile said, "_Or_ think of a cute girl you like in a bikini!"

His mind going immediately to his green haired friend, and then a shocked and embarrassed halt, Lelouch's eyes widened and he frowned deeply. "What?" he asked in an agitated voice,

Kotoru laughed, and the camera omitted a flash.

"Hey, don't take a picture of that! I wasn't ready!"

She looked at the picture. "Oh? I think it looks kind of cute," she told him, "I might just keep this picture all to myself."

Thankfully, through much arguing, the girl took a more presentable photograph of him, and proceeded on the process of making his I.D., leaving him to attempt to become accustomed to the store. Following the orders of Kazuya, who, despite her timid nature, was actually the assistant manager of the store, Lelouch carried out several jobs, such as putting away books, helping people find what they were looking for and so on. While work became a bit more tiring by noontime, when the most customers came inside the store, he found that it wasn't too excruciating at all.

By closing time, a little while after sunset, he was ready to return home. Heading towards the door, Lelouch gave everyone a small goodbye and gave the door a good pull, opening just in time to hear the booming sound of thunder overhead.

"You've got to be kidding me! Was that thunder?" Kotoru asked with a sigh, placing her hand firmly on her hip.

"Yes," Lelouch replied, looking up to the sky, "It looks like the rain is going to come pouring down any second now. I guess I'll run home, then."

"E-excuse me," Kazuya began, "if you want, you can use my umbrella. I can share with my sister,"

Lelouch shook his head and smiled politely at her offer, "No, it's okay. Thank you, but my house is actually not too far from here. I'm sure I can make it without get drenched," he told her.

Unfortunately, this was one of the occasional instances in which Lelouch was completely and utterly wrong. By the time he stood before the staircase to his home, he was completely covered in rain. He approached the door to his home, and upon opening the door, found that C.C. was not there, which, to his surprise, and bothered him to a great extent, for some unexplainable reason. _I guess it's no use sitting around here and waiting for her, she's probably with Nannerell and her husband, anyway_, he thought to himself as he took off his damp shirt. With a stifled yawn, he made his way to the laundry and, after wrapping a towel securely around his body, put his clothes among the other articles of clothing in the washing machine. By the time he had the water running in the bathroom, he internally debated as to whether or not to simply fall asleep instead of take a shower- he was exhausted.

However, the feel of the cool water hitting against his back proved to be far more refreshing than he had expected. Lelouch passed his hands through his hair and, eyes closed, reached for a nearby bottle. Upon opening it, however, he realized the smell was a familiar one- it was the shampoo that C.C. used. He opened his eyes and gave the bottle a moment's glance before setting it down and grabbing the bottle he had intended on using. _At what point had she become such a familiar part of my life?_ he wondered to himself. Though it had only been several days since he started his more peaceful life with his accomplice, Lelouch found himself completely accustomed to being around her.

Lelouch had lost everything he had once known. He lost friends like Suzaku and Shirley, and comrades like Kallen, he lost his precious sister and his own identity- 'Lelouch Vi Brittania' was, in most aspects, dead. Even so, with the loss of so many he had yet to lose the woman who initially meant only a little more than the means of his accomplishing his goals to him. However, he found that those feelings of apathetically were now distant memories.

When Lelouch opened the door of the bathroom, he was surprised to feel a rush of cooler air meet him once he stepped out of the humid room. Droplets of water dripped down the ends of his hair and met the skin of his collarbone as he fetched the dry clothing from the dryer, and replaced them with the wet, freshly cleaned clothing he had placed in the washer. He looked around the house, and though it appeared to be empty, he noticed shoes in the hallway that belonged to his companion- C.C. was home.

He quietly made his way down the hallway corridor and approached C.C.'s room, intending to place in it the dried clothing that belonged to her. "C.C.," he called out as he knocked on the door, "I'm coming in, okay?'

His call was met only with silence, and so he opened the door slowly, only to be slightly taken back by the sight before him. The curtains that ordinarily covered the large window of her room were pushed apart, allowing the pale moonlight to come into the room and shine it's pale light against C.C.'s sleeping body. Unable to understand why he felt a sense of hesitation, he pushed himself to approach the painting-like scene and placed her clothes on the foot of her bed, neatly folded. He allowed himself a glimpse of her slumbering form, secretly trying to engrave the beautiful image of her, the hue of her skin in the moonlight, her long hair spread around her, the soft rhythm of her breathing, in his memory- his normal attitude, his _personality_, would normally be intolerant of such an action, and held true as his moment of, what he felt was, weakness was a fleeting one. He looked away, and continued folding only to realize something- she was wearing his white shirt.

Of course, this wasn't a completely new thing. The girl was accustomed to walking around and, of course, sleeping in his shirt so much so that it soon enough became more like an article of clothing that belonged to her than to him. However, he had bought her a sufficient amount of clothing, which, of course, included pajamas. Even so, there she was, wearing his shirt, as always. _She went into my room and opened my dresser just to get it, when she could've just worn her _own_ clothing?_ he pondered.

He looked at the rest of the clothing in his arms- a clean shirt, identical to the one she was wearing, was among the neatly folded clothes he had separated for himself. He looked down at the shirt, and glanced back at the sleeping girl. Silently, he placed the shirt down with the rest of her clothing, and reached for her bed sheet, which was crumbled by the foot of the bed, raising them and placing them delicately over her body.

"Do you like the rain, Lelouch?" he heard a soft voice ask, breaking the delicate silence. He looked down at the girl, whom hadn't bothered to turn her face to him while speaking. In fact, she was so perfectly still it could almost be assumed she was still asleep, despite her decision to speak just seconds ago.

Thunder roared and light flashed through the window as Lelouch decided on how to reply. "Yes," he told her, "I like the rain."

"I do not," she commented, "but why do you like the rain?"

Lelouch stared at the glass of the window, covered in raindrops. "I like the rain," he began, "because it's perseveres. Humans tend to hate the rain, we complain about it, run home at the sight of it, and depict often ridiculous, tragic scenes in the rain. Even so, it never stops raining, and life continues to be sustained."

"Persevering despite the hatred appointed to it, that's why you like the rain," C.C. laughed lightly, "how poetic, Lelouch."

She turned to him slightly, and patted the empty space on her bed, beckoning him to sit beside her. She turned to the window once more, raising her hand and allowing it to rest against her throat. "I do not understand why I dislike the rain," she told him, "I like watching the rain as it hits the ground, I enjoy watching the flash of lightening and hearing thunder roar throughout the sky. I find the feel of the cool rain against my skin pleasant, and yet I dislike the rain."

C.C. turned to her head to him and frowned slightly, "why do you think that is, Lelouch? That I dislike the falling rain?"

Lelouch looked down on her and reached out, brushing her hair from her eyes and shifting it away from her face and exposing the bird-like image of the Geass sigil on her forehead. "Maybe at one point in your life you hated the rain, but now your opinion is slowly beginning to change" he suggested, "or, maybe something happened to you in the rain, though you do not remember it."

Turning her face away from him, she closed her eyes and reached for his hands, brushing her fingers against his lightly. "I do not know," she told him, "It's been so long, I've seen so much, I do not remember if anything ever happened to me in the rain. Maybe something _did_ happen to me in the rain, that has brought to paint such an unpleasant picture of it."

Lelouch closed his hand around her fingers gently, "maybe one day, as time goes on, you will like the rain."

C.C. frowned slightly, though she knew he could not see it. She exhaled and planned her words, as Lelouch looked at her still body. "As I told you beforehand, I did not give you my Code. If I had, when I was shot I would have died, because, as you know, the Code makes it the obtainer immune to death, as well as the power of Geass. Once you have the Code, you can form contracts with others, and give them the power of Geass, though what power will apply for the individual is not know to you until the contract is accepted."

Lelouch's eyebrows rose as he began to realize what she was talking about, and, despite how out of the blue it was, chose to keep his silence and listen as she continued. "Gaining a Code, however, does not activate it. In order for a Code to become valid, the person who had received it must first die," she explained. "Also, the Code is not like the Geass in the way that the received must be willing to accept it prior to gaining it. A Code, however, can both be given to an individual once their Geass is at its fullest state, or forced upon them, as was the case for me."

She paused. "Do you remember the Geass Directorate?"

"Yes," he replied solemnly, "I remember."

"Long ago," she told him, "I was part of the Directorate. It was an association that dedicated it's time and efforts to raising, helping, studying and, essentially, controlling the people who had obtained the Code. There, the higher officials rarely mentioned the concept of Code Geass, but on one occasion, one of them explained to me that it was merely a legend. However, once I received a higher position in the Directorate, I was allowed into a library that was closed off to most people."

"The library was called 'The Hanging Garden,' it was a large, imposing building that stood towards the end of the headquarters of the Directorate. The library was much taller than it was wide, whereas each wall served as a large bookshelf that towered above the ground to the ceiling. The only way to get any books was to climb a series of immense and twisting staircases, which was in itself a good deal of work. Even so, one day I was arranging books in the shelves, as I was told to do so by someone of higher rank than me, when I came across an old book that addressed the issue of Code Geass."

"The book was ancient, and hand written, probably the only copy of the book ever written. In it, Socrates explained-"

"Wait," Lelouch interrupted, "_Socrates?_ Are you saying that Socrates knew about the Geass? It's that ancient of a power?"

C.C. turned to him and chuckled. "Why are you so surprised, Lelouch? Of course the Geass has had a long lasting history, if those who give it to ordinary people are immortal. And, yes, Socrates had a Code. It is for that reason that he did not fear death during his infamous trial, and took the capital punishment sentenced against him so easily, because he knew he would not die."

"What was the Geass Socrates obtained?"

"The Greek philosopher had the ability to control people's minds in the way in which he was able to both wipe out certain aspects of their minds, such as beliefs or memories, and also place what he willed in their minds- like his philosophies,"

"Which is why he was sentenced for corrupting the minds of the youth?"

"Yes. He was using his Geass on good portion of the population, at first, but as time passed by people began to become his disciples upon free will."

"I see," Lelouch commented. In all honesty, he was quite surprised. Who would have known such a famous and well-known man was a possessor of the Geass?

"Socrates described his feelings of feeling alone in the world, though highly privileged because he had achieved what he called 'Code Geass,' in which he had all the benefits of the Code while he had his Geass in tact," C.C. continued to explain. "His book was mainly about his life, and how he came to attaining a Geass, but he also explained how he gained the Code Geass. It is obtained by first receiving a Geass, then developing it to it's fullest capacity and, finally, receiving the Code from someone other than the person who gave you your Geass."

Lelouch nodded. "Thus, in doing so, you are able to get a Code, without breaking off your contract with the person who gave you the Geass, right?" he asked her.

"Yes, once you receive the Code from the person who gave you the Code, your contract is basically completed, thus making the Geass invalid."

"But if this is so simple why aren't there more people with the Code Geass?"

"Well, I cannot tell you how many people have the Code Geass, but there are only three people who are known to have had obtained it- Socrates, his close disciple, Plato, of whom he shared the secret of the Code Geass, and your father," she told him. "However, the reason why so few have it is because few know about it, and because the Geass is still such a mysterious manifestation, people do not generally attempt to know much about it than what is already accepted. Also, it is very rare for people to even hear about the Code Geass, because the Directorate keeps information pertaining to it hidden away, thus making it a secret and a taboo to inquire about."

"Why would they keep this a secret?"

"Because," she explained, "the Code Geass is a dangerous power. In the wrong hands, it can create a foe that has a supernatural ability and is unable to die. If the Directorate allowed all to know about the Code Geass, they would be putting the world at risk, so they strongly forbid people to speak or learn about the Code Geass."

"Is that why you couldn't tell Alkaid about your not having given me your Code?" he asked her.

"Yes," she told him solemnly, "if anyone was to find out that you have obtained Code Geass…"

Noticing her pause, he frowned. "So, because it's forbidden to have it, they would go to any lengths to relieve the world the problem."

"Yes," she replied. "They would find some way to make sure we would pay for having gone against their orders. In fact, my telling you this in itself is, to them, a crime."

Lelouch nodded and shifted where he was sitting on the bed. He sighed and passed his free hand through his hair, before coming upon a yet unanswered question. "If you didn't give me your Code, C.C., then who did?"

Her hand tightened around his as she paused, measuring her words. She watched the falling rain for a moment, before a flash of lightening illuminated the dark room. "The person who gave you his Code, Lelouch," she whispered, "was your father."

* * *

"Lelouch, help me out with these boxes, will you?" Kotoru asked him from the backroom of the bookstore.

Lelouch, turning away from the bookshelves, quickly made his way to the girl's side and aided her. The previous night's rain had long since stopped, though the streets were still covered by large puddles and the air was thick with the smell of rain. Grabbing the boxes of newly shipped books, he made his way to the genre written on the box, only to inwardly groan at the word he found written on it- '_romance,_' written in perfect penmanship, was the arrangement of letters he was displeased to see.

This did not mean he held a vendetta against books that had such sentimental occurrences in them, for he often had read somewhat romantic books to Nunnally when they were not available in Braille or in audio. While he always made sure the books were never too mature or intimate for her young and innocent mind, he found that her taste in literature was not one to be criticized, whereas many of the books of her choice were rather appealing to him, as well.

Furthermore, it was not the books that made Lelouch dislike walking to the section where they belonged, but rather the females who gathered around the area. While many, he had to admit, kept to themselves and acted sheepishly to seeing a young man witness them flipping through the books, there were those who stared at him hungrily, and attempted to flirt with him. Other times, upon seeing him around the girls, boyfriends or fathers would confront him, and more often than not, friends would join the young women in question to whisper (rather loudly) about him.

Attempting to finish his job as quickly as possible, he peered through the large window before him and took a moment to watch the people peacefully pass by. The conversation he had with C.C. was, though necessary, an unsettling one. _Why would my father force his Code upon me? _He pondered, _why would he intentionally allow me to have the Code Geass?_

His thoughts were interrupted when he noticed a blur of green- sure enough, there was C.C. across the street. He didn't feel his arm stop, nor did he realize he had stopped working as he took in the image of her carrying baskets for delivery and hurryingly making her way down the street. He watched her as she paused, and began to look around herself, as though surprised or shaken out of her train of thought. Slightly hoping she would notice him and give him a wave, he continued to stare, only to find her take a few steps opposite the way she was previously walking. She opened her mouth and spoke words that were mute to him, though he could not see whom it was she was speaking to until the person of her focus came closer to the seemingly young woman.

A boy, slightly younger in appearance than himself, with dark hair, gave her a friendly smile as he handed her a small notebook. As words were exchanged between the two, he watched the person with whom he shared a home with react positively, her face brightening in response to his words. Lelouch felt a slight tightening in his chest, and felt his grip on the book in his hand tighten, but his moment of on-seeing was soon interrupted by an upbeat voice-

"What are you looking at, Lelou?" Kotoru asked, placing her hand on his shoulder merrily.

Lelouch jumped slightly at her being beside him, startled. "Oh," he responded, "I'm sorry, I was just off in a daze, I'm sorry."

Kotoru laughed lightly, "It's fine. What, these lovey-dovey books got you to thinking?"

Lelouch forced a laugh, though he found himself feeling agitated, for some reason unbeknownst to him. "No way," he told her, "I was just staring into space, if I started daydreaming about stuff like that, it'd be pretty unhealthy, wouldn't it?"

Kotoru shrugged and walked away. The following day, Lelouch spent his time in a daze, following orders and doing his job, but with his mind on other matters. While he attempted to focus on his work, he found himself increasingly frustrated as he was unable to understand or come up to a reasonable explanation as to why his father would have given him his Geass. After all, his dying would only have had benefited his father- what was the logic behind giving him immortality?

His having had lost himself so deeply in thought thus caused his day to go much faster, so much so that when closing time had arrived he felt almost as though he had just awoken from a hazy dream. As he set away the last box of books for the day, he looked casually at his co-workers: there was Kazuya and Kotoru, the manager and assistant manager, as well as Chana, Mori and Sumeru. With the exception of a young man with fiery orange hair named Touya, of whom he saw rarely, Lelouch found he was the only male amongst his co-workers. While this was a curious fact, it was not of a particular problem, though his having to lift up boxes was a daily responsibility bestowed upon him.

"Bye, Lelouch!" Kotoru called out, only to be joined by several other people who bid him farewell. He turned to them and gave them a friendly smile, waving to them farewell in return. As he pulled the doorknob and took a step, he was surprised to find golden eyes staring back at him.

"C.C., what are you doing here?" Lelouch asked.

"I finished a bit early, and I thought you would probably be getting out by now so I wanted to walk you home," she explained.

He gave her a strange look, "you made the effort to come here just to walk me home?"

"Yes," she told him matter-of-factly, "but if that's too much of a problem, I can turn around right now and go home by myself."

As they began to walk down the pavement sidewalk, side-by-side, Lelouch attempted to ignore a few looks tossed their way. As new members to the community, they naturally caused a few heads to turn in curiosity, but the fact that they spent almost every public outing together did not help reinforce his argument that the relationship between the two was not of romantic nature.

As they continued to walk together, he looked up at the gray sky above them. _Yes, _he thought, _just as I was thinking before, C.C. is still here. I do not know why I have my Code, or what the future may hold, but I do know, at least, that she continues to stay by my side. _

He glanced at her, hoping to be able to read her expression, only to find that she appeared just a calm as always, though in seemingly good spirits. She wasn't beaming, of course- she never smiled to that extent, but the slightest hint of a smile held great meaning.

_I've lost everything, _he thought to himself, almost secretly, _I've lost friends, I've lost my home, I've lost part of who I am to the Zero Requiem, and the path I myself chose to follow. Even so, I'll try to make the most of this life. _

Lelouch's thoughts were interrupted by an abrupt push against his legs. He looked down, surprised to see a little girl had bumped into him, no doubt too preoccupied with running. The little girl rubbed her head and looked up at him, giving him a toothy grin.

"Sorry!" she told him, cheerfully. Lelouch's eyes widened as he stared at the little girl- though her features were not identical, she looked strikingly familiar to someone he held dear. With long wavy hair of a slightly darker color, a light complexion, blue eyes and an innocent face, the child reminded him of Nunnally to a shocking extent.

Lelouch knelt down to her, touching her forehead gently. "Are you okay? Did you hurt yourself?" he asked her,

The child shook her head happily. "No," she told him, "I'm okay, it hurts a little but it's not a boo-boo!"

Lelouch laughed with a tinge of sadness as her mother ran to the little girl's side and looked at the young man her child had crashed into. "I'm so sorry," she told him, "she's always running off like this, are you okay?"

Lelouch nodded, and after assuring the woman that all was well, paused to watch the two walk away and make their way around the upcoming corner. C.C. turned to him, frowning at the sorrowful expression on his face. In silence, the two began to slowly continue on their way.

"Are you okay?" she asked him, concern deep in her voice.

"Yeah," he told her, "she just reminded me of…"

C.C. nodded. "I know," she replied, "I understand."

Lelouch paused for a moment and turned to her. "Does that ever happen to you?" he asked, "Do you look at someone and remember about before?"

She looked away from him and stared into the distance. "Yes," she told him, her voice thick with nostalgia, "it happens to me when I see cities or towns that resemble homes I've lived in, or listen to songs that remind me of older times. When I look at people who have similar hair colors, or distinctly shaped eyes. When I look at a passing child, or an elderly person. When I look at a stranger, or when I look at you."

His expression saddened as he took in her response.

"Lelouch," she began, "there's something I need to tell you-"

Before she could continue, the sound of a loud horn boomed from the distance. Stopping in their steps, they were dumbfounded to see the little girl they had encountered chasing after a rubber ball, as a large car quickly made it's way around the corner. Without a moment's thought, as though on instinct, Lelouch began to run towards the small child.

"That's the guy," a male voice yelled from inside the car, "that's the one the boss told us about!"

The car accelerated as the streets became filled with the various sounds of car horns and yells. Lelouch, having had reached the girl, knew there wasn't enough time to get out of the speeding cars way. His arms tightened around the small girl's frame and he felt himself unable to breathe as he closed his eyes, attempting to prepare himself, if such a thing were possible. In an instant, in the blink of an eye, he felt something huge, and immense object smash against him, and the ground seemed to disappear from beneath him. There was nothing left for him to see, sounds seemed to have had muted, physical contact was no longer distinguishable. There was nothing left. Everything had faded into the darkness until he, too, lost himself.

* * *

Lelouch woke up only to find himself in his bed. Sitting up, he wondered if the last images he had seen were merely a dream, a nightmare he had conjured up in what felt like an exhausting sleep. Though his head hurt, he forced himself to sit up straight as C.C. came into the run, and, realizing he was awake, rushed to his side.

"Lelouch, what are you doing up?" she asked him, shocked that he was awake. C.C. looked nothing like the calm, cynical woman she had always been. Her face, almost always blank as an empty canvas, was ridden with worry. Lelouch was amazed to find that such a self-dependent, often high maintenance person could appear so small and fragile in an instant.

"You need to lay back down, you're not well yet," she told him, "go back to sleep."

"No," he replied, "I don't want to lay in bed, besides I just woke up, and I'm fine,"

"You're not fine!" she exclaimed, almost angry, "You cant keep acting as though you can be strong when your just clearly not. You did that when Alkaid was here, too, you got up out of bed when you were supposed to be resting,"

"I'm not made of glass, C.C., you don't have to keep acting like it,"

"You're not made of glass, but you're not unbreakable either,"

"I'm not in any harm, right now. I don't see why you have to treat me so patronizingly,"

"You're not in any harm now, but you were not too long ago," she snapped, "you behave far too recklessly, you cant go doing things like that when you've just changed the way you have,"

"I don't see why you have to be constantly on top of me like this! You're right, I have _changed_, but if anything that shouldn't have you acting so paranoid!" he replied, frustrated, "it's not like I can die!"

C.C.'s face contorted into one of pure anger, something Lelouch had seldom ever seen. "That's just it, Lelouch," she told him, "you think your strong, you think your untouchable but you aren't! You aren't!"

"Your spouting nonsense, nothing's wrong with me! I'm not hurt, I'm not in pain, and I'm not dead!"

"You could have been!" she replied, her voice cracking.

Lelouch looked at her as she turned her face away from him and wrapped her arms around herself in frustration. Lelouch frowned, unable to decipher the reason behind her sudden behavior. "What are you so worried about?" he asked,

"Nothing. I'm not worried about anything," she told, as she started to walk away. Before she could, however, he grasped her by the wrist, and repeated himself.

"There's something wrong, don't tell me there isn't," he told her.

C.C. pulled her wrist away, and refused to make eye contact. "You just received your Code, you're in a delicate state right now and you cant go testing your limits," she told him, "the after affects, and the period directly after you have received your Code is a shaky one, and I cant tell you what may happen. The next time you do something like what you did today, you might not be able to walk away."

Lelouch thought back to what had happen, feeling as though it was still hazy. Then, he felt something warm drip against his hand. Looking down, he realized his hand had just come in contact with a drop of blood, one that had fallen down from his face. He raised his hand, and felt a wide scratch on his cheek. When he withdrew his fingers from his face, they were scarlet red.

C.C. held a cloth she had been holding in her hand to his face and wiped it gently, sitting down on the edge of his bed. "Because this is your first death after receiving the Code, your body still suffers some damage," she explained, "you wont have any scars, but you do have some bruising and scratches. By tomorrow, however, it will be gone."

Lelouch nodded and was suddenly hit by the images of the accident. Fresh in his mind, as though a blow to his head, came the painful depictions of what occurred- the headlights coming closer and closer, his reaching and scraping against the concrete road. He remembered the pain of the fall, and than the sudden impact as the car rushed by and made fierce contract with his body. He remembered the little girl in his arms. He remembered her crying. He remembered blood.

"She," his voice was so faint C.C. could barely hear it, "she died, didn't she?"

When she didn't answer him, Lelouch was certain of what had occurred to the child he held in his arm only hours ago. He looked to the side, in frustration, and then down to his lap. He tightened his grip on the bed sheets that covered him, and then loosened them, only to tighten his fingers around them once more. He was overcome with emotion- anger, discomfort, and sadness. He wanted to turn back time, he wanted to run away.

He didn't know the girl. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, he knew the tears he was attempting (and failing) to force back under his hand, which covered his face, were not for her, but more so for her doppelganger. It was idiotic, to him, to face this realization _now_, but nonetheless it was at this moment of sheer weakness, in this breakdown that he was forced to admit to himself that Nunnally would, as time would pass, die. He found his being upset unreasonable- more than likely, he would never see his sister again, much less see her age. Despite the thought being meant to relieve his pain, it only worsened it, forcing bitter tears to slip out from the corners of his closed eyes.

He tightened his hand around his arm, digging his nails into his skin. When he was a child, when he was exiled, he often would hear Nunnally cry herself to sleep in the late hours of the night, when all were asleep. Just as she would never cry in front of him, he would never do so before her, and upon hearing her weep he developed the habit of scratching his arm in an attempt to distract himself from crying. It was a habit he long abandoned, and yet, for a reason unbeknownst to him, it reappeared now of all times. As he shook slightly, and let out a shaky exhale, he was rushed by the sensation of how small he was. How tiny he was in the world, how insignificant he had now become.

Lelouch was shaken out of his thoughts as he felt C.C.'s cool hands press against the back of his head and bring him towards her body. This was not the first time she committed such an act- she had done so when Euphemia had died, amongst other times of weakness. He always found that when she did this, it was as though she was handling an infant. There somehow seemed to be experience behind this gesture that felt so natural. Even so, such a thing did not comfort him. If anything, it only twisted his train of thought and his agony to a new downward spiral.

There, in contact with her body, he remembered specific events that occurred to him, to which he always paid little mind, and was unable to decipher- namely, all the moments in his life when a female had turned to him for comfort. He was never able to understand why so many girls did this- why, in their grief, they would push their affections onto him, and drown him in embraces and kisses. He was always unsure.

He remembered Kallen, when she bid him farewell. Even more so, he remembered Shirley, that day in the rain. He recalled her tears, her pain, how deeply she was hurting. He remembered, of course, about her kissing him, as well. Why would doing such a thing be an act of grief? Would it, he wondered, relieve the pain, if only for an instant? The questions that lingered upon those encounters were not ones that haunted him when he was living his double life. They were frivolous when Zero existed. But now, when time had seemingly stopped as the rain poured down outside of their home, _now_ the questions were alive, ringing in his mind. The last thing he recalled- when he was holding Refrain, ready to inject the numbing drug into his system, and Kallen intervened. _'Comfort me,'_ he told her, '_there are things a woman can do for comforting, right?'_

He pulled himself away from the immortal woman's shoulder and she, in turn, looked at him, ready to bombard him with questions regarding his wellbeing. Before she could make a noise, before she could utter a syllable, he raised his hands and clasped the sides of her face gently in his hands. He took a moment to look into her shocked, widen eyes and admire their golden hue. Even in the darkness of his room, her porcelain, almost doll like features were still very much apparent. He took into mind every one of her expressions- her frowns, her smiles, her tears, her sarcastic laugh, her blank stares. As he drew closer and closer to her, lowering his head down to hers, letting their foreheads touch, he could feel her trembling slightly beneath his grip. So close, he knew very well she was aghast, even her breathing took a pause. Closer and closer, he could almost count every eyelash. Closer still, he felt her hands fall down from their previous location against her chest to the surface of the bed.

* * *

Okay! That's the end of this chapter! I'm so sorry it was late. I try to update every Thursday, but my mother had a baby on the 3rd, so it's been very hectic. The timing was hard, because my 16th birthday on the 7th went uncelebrated, and now we're juggling a newborn with a one year old! Super hectic! Not only that, but I've been battling artist's block for about five months and its very upsetting- it leaves me frustrated to the point where it even affects my writing. But I love to write- there are so many things you just cant express with pictures. Words are amazing.

Anyways, I recently got a comment that C.C. and Lelouch are out of character. I appreciate that comment, but it made me fret. My biggest worry was to make them behave out of character but this is the story is taking me, so I find myself unable to find a middle ground. Even so, I hope you enjoyed this chapter- the end made me very flustered. I've, truthfully, never written romantic scenes, so I was shocked that after I finished it I was blushing. I'm venturing into a lot of different situations with this fanfic- even so, I want to do my best and please you, dear reader! Thank you and God bless!

(Oh, and if you would like to see my Code Geass fan art, and maybe learn a bit more about me, or my stories look me up on deviantart dot com under the name "Tsadde")


	7. Desiderium

To Die So I Can Be Born Again

By Tsadde

Chapter 7: Desiderium

"_When we come into contact with the other person, our thoughts and actions should express our mind of compassion, even if that person says and does things that are not easy to accept. We practice in this way until we see clearly that our love is not contingent upon the other person being loveable."_

_-Thich Nhat Hanh_

She was so close, so close it was almost unbearable, like she had committed an atrocious crime by holding him away from her as her pale, porcelain hands braced his shoulders so he had come to a shocking halt. C.C. was so close to him that he could feel her soft breath as it was gently released from her slightly parted lips. So close that he could make it the array of golden shades in her eyes. So close, so very close, that it only hurt him all the more to know she had stopped him with such a lack of hesitance. Lelouch stared at the green haired girl in an array of emotions- disbelief, shame, embarrassment, confusion; He found himself unable to make eye contact with the woman who had just rejected him so easily, and swiftly pulled away from her in mortification. He attempted to search for something worth pretending to care about in his room, hoping to push the embarrassing incident behind him, but when he found himself unable to, Lelouch felt he had delved even deeper in his sense of stupidity and shame.

He could feel a thin hand gently reach out to his and he, without hesitation, pulled away; all he wanted at this point was for her to disappear. C.C. looked at the young man with worried eyes, attempting to understand what was going through his mind. She reached out for him a second time, and a second time was rejected. Then, with iron resolve, pulled him to her, wrapping her thin, pale arms around his torso as she buried her face in his shoulder. As she felt him stiffen with the embrace, she completely understood his desire to get away from her.

"Don't pull away from me. Just listen," she began with a gentle whisper, "it's not…it's not what you think. It's not that I didn't want-"

"What are you apologizing for?" Lelouch asked with a cheery voice, smiling at her slightly. "I mean, thanks to you, I didn't pull through some stupid stunt. I don't even know what I was thinking."

She gave him a hurt look, taken aback as his words registered in her mind and he gently tried to pull her arms away from him. In response, she forced them around him tighter and gave him an agitated look.

"Don't give me that face, and don't you dare speak to me with that voice," she warned. "Do you honestly think I don't know when you're hiding something by now?"  
"I'm not hiding anything, I don't know what you're-"

"Stop it! Don't do this to _me_, Lelouch. You've lived your life this way; you've feigned happiness to everyone in order to recluse yourself to your real intents. Don't behave this way to me, of all people," she demanded, silencing him. "I didn't mean to push you away, I'm not doing that. We're accomplices, Lelouch, partners; I would never do that to you."

"The reason I did that…" she trailed off, now being overwhelmed with caution and hesitance and, after a brief silence, C.C. looked away from him, a bit uneasy, but continued. "The reason I didn't allow you to do this is because I know that you'll only get hurt in the end. I know what it's like, I know far too well what it's like to feel so much pain that you want to make it stop with the company of another person. I know how it feels to be in so much pain that you simply want to lose yourself in someone else so you can distract yourself, as briefly as it may be."

"However," she continued slowly as if measuring her words, which flowed off her lips with a concentrated sense of experience, "I also know how in vain it is to do so. I've had so much time and so many opportunities which I took advantage of to lose myself, to try to escape. I would go as far as I possibly could, discarding my shame, throwing away any shred of decency, so I wouldn't feel anymore. But it would never prove successful. I would always wake up, regardless of the person beside me, regretting my actions, and feeling an unreasonable resentment towards the person I had spent my time with. I blamed them, Lelouch, I blamed them for not being able to heal me and numb the pain, and if you do that to me, if I _allow_ you to do that to me, I don't know if you can ever look at me again. I don't know if I will have any way to salvage whatever we have left."

Lelouch looked at C.C. in surprise, amazed that she had just spoken the way she had. She was never so emotional, so vulnerable or open to him. He found himself too much in disbelief to accept it. He studied her face, able to recognize that, to some degree, she felt hurt by his inability to respond to her embrace. She loosened her grip on him, and prepared to leave but he, with a firm resolve, slowly pulled her closer to him, resting his cheek against her head endearingly. He took in her scent, the slow up and down pace of her breathing and allowed himself to drift, meditating on her words. He was still in pain, without a doubt- the reality of the small child's death still lingered hauntingly in the corner of his heart, but the pain eased itself slightly, very much there but not utterly intolerable as before. He inhaled deeply and let out a breath, holding C.C. more strongly. Yes, she had completely analyzed the nature of his attempted action to kiss her, to become overwhelmed by her, but he knew, deeply, that his action was not solely based on whim, or a desperate need for comfort. _No,_ he thought to himself, _that wasn't the only reason. _Even so, he felt soothed, considerably content just as long as she was beside him.

"You do understand me, don't you?" she asked him, interrupting his thoughts as she rested in his arms, still a bit unsure.

"If what I feel could be summed up into one word, then, yes, C.C.. Yes, I think I do," he whispered to her as he closed his eyes, slowly leaning against the headboard of the bed. He felt her nod and pull closer to him, holding him against herself until the late night took hold of both them, drawing them both into a deep, much deserved sleep.

* * *

C.C. woke up before the sun had rose, surprised to find herself in Lelouch's bed. Her eyes fluttered open as the morning sun shone through the window curtain, warming her skin with it's golden light. The warmth she felt wasn't only to be blamed on the sun, however. Lelouch was warm, his arms comfortably wrapped around her torso. She rose herself from the bed slowly, sliding gently out of his arms in an attempt to not stir his sleep. Finding herself successful, she reached her foot down and brushed her toes against the hardwood floor before turning to the sleeping person before her. She watched him sleep, contently and serenely. She felt as though time had halted as she appreciated the beautiful scene before her- he was truly such a wonder to behold, having accomplished so much, and sacrificed to such an extent, yet still willing to move forward. He was so young, and so very strong, yet so simultaneously vulnerable and fragile. Lelouch was truly an amazing man. She looked at his slender hands- hands that shed so much blood, but healed so many, and brushed her fingers against him. She had come to love those hands.

C.C. felt the sting of tears against her eyes, as she was overwhelmed with a familiar sentiment of nostalgia as she watched him. The tears, however, barely formed before she wiped them away. Now was not the time. She silently walked to her room, picked out her clothes and changed. Once prepared, she quickly but caringly made Lelouch a sandwich with the groceries that Nannerell's husband put in their fridge and left it out on the kitchen counter. Once done, she wrapped it in aluminum foil and, though a bit embarrassed, snuck a quick kiss on the wrapping. It was childish, and she did quickly and flustered, as if she was worried someone has seen her. Finally, with a small smile, C.C. took a faint breath and left the house, prepared to set off on her day. She steadily made her way down the quiet streets as the sun's warm rays began to peak out from the pink, morning clouds. She happily took in the calming sounds of her feet hitting the pavement as she took in her surroundings. Today, though Lelouch did not know it, she was not going to work in the bakery itself, as she usually did. Instead, she had a list of responsibilities to carry out, and while the day ahead promised to be a busy one, the assurance of a well-known dish amongst the locals titled 'Pizza Pasta' with her name on it proved to be enough fuel in itself to keep the green haired immortal going.

She reached the first home she had to deliver a set of bread and pastries to, now very well familiar with the path to Crescendo's home. Every week, he would place an order to the same types of breads, the same sweets, in the same quantities; she wondered if he ever grew tired of such repetition. She knocked on the door, and waited a few seconds before the young boy answered the door with a bright, but clearly weary smile. The sound of a crying baby could be heard resonating from deep inside the house.

"Hey," he greeted her, "I'm assuming it's the same price as always?"

"Yes," she replied with a nod.

"Okay," he laughed, handing her the money, "thanks. I know it's quite a trip to walk all the way over here, on practically the opposite side of town,"

"It's fine," she told him, "I like walking in the mornings. It's calming."

The boy grabbed his order and placed it on a nearby table as the baby's cries grew more shrill and loud, and the soft but desperate sounding shushing of the child's mother could be heard. "You know," he told her, "that sounds like something I really need right now. Would you mind if I join you?"

C.C. gave him a surprised look and shook her head, "I don't mind at all."

Crescendo smiled happily and closed the door behind him, joining her as she walked away to her next delivery. As they walked, C.C. noticed him sheepishly look at her from the corner of his eye. She halted and stared at him blankly.

"What's wrong?" she asked him,

"Nothing!" he replied quickly, shaking his hands in the air.

"Then why are you staring at me like that?"

Crescendo's face reddened immediately. "I wasn't _staring,_ per say. I was just thinking."

"About what?"

The teenaged boy frowned and scratched his head nervously. "Well," he exhaled, "how can I say this without sounding weird? I was wondering why my great-great-great grandfather and you stopped being friends."

"I already explained that to you."

"_No,_" he whispered childishly, "I understand the whole concept of being immortal and not being able to live in one place for long. But why didn't you send letters to him, or visit in a different town? Why'd you just stop speaking all together?"

C.C. looked up at the sky and considered how to word the answer, as was her habit. "When you leave a place," she began with a tone that revealed the wisdom of many years of life, "you leave behind a resounding presence, like an echo. It may be heard by those closest to you, and the sound you have made may ring in their ears, but it is only for an instant. Soon enough, you can no longer be heard. Soon enough, your name isn't said anymore, and you begin to leave people's memories."

"When it's like that," she told him, "it's easiest not to try to force yourself back into someone's life, once they have moved on. It's less painful, as well."

"But how do you know he moved on once you left?" Crescendo asked with a frown, clearly saddened by her melancholic response.

C.C. looked away from the sky, to him as though she was surprised by the question. "That's simple, Crescendo," she replied as though he had asked her a nonsensical question, "they always do."

Before the young man could respond to her, she walked away from him and made her way to the doorstep to a small home, knocking on the door and waiting for it to be answered. He watched her closely as she interacted with the older woman inside the home, completely distracted by the thought of her. Suddenly, his daze was interrupted by C.C. turning to him quickly with narrowed eyes. He looked up, surprised and stared up at the two women who looked at him intently.

"Excuse me?" he asked, clearly taken by surprise.

The old woman laughed happily, "I was asking you how your mother was doing."

"Oh," he responded, his eyes automatically narrowing with lack of interest, "she's fine. Same as always."

"I understand," the woman replied with a sympathetic expression, "Crescendo, take it one day at a time, alright?"

"Yes ma'am," he replied respectfully as C.C. came to his side and crossed out the woman's name for her list. The door to the quaint woman's house was shut, and they slowly began to walk once more down the now more busy streets to the next house she had a delivery for.

"All my problems will be solved, won't they?" he asked her timidly, speeding up so he could catch up with her.

"They might," she replied softly, "or they might not. It depends on you."

"But this power you've given me," he told her, "I don't think it could possibly be in vain. _Something_ has to change, don't you think?"

"Something _always_ changes," she replied, staring off into the distance. Neither one of them spoke, and though Crescendo felt as though he was being strangled by the amount of awkwardness he felt, the green hair seemingly young woman seemed to be perfectly immune to the discomfort he felt. She simply walked and walked, and walked some more, knowing full well that the young, teenaged boy would follow.

* * *

"Lelouch, you aren't listening to a word I was saying, were you?" an irritated, feminine voice implied.

The young man rose his violet eyes from his unwrapped sandwich and met his superior's light blue ones with a surprised expression, as though she had appeared before him from thin air. Realizing he had completely blocked out what the girl had told him only seconds ago, he gave her a confused smile.

"I'm sorry, what did you say, Kotoru?"

"Ugh!" Kotoru groaned, "This is the third time you've blanked out on me today, Lelouch! Now, tell me, what could possibly be going through your mind that is so darn important?"

"Nothing," he replied quickly, "I haven't been thinking about anything in particular, today,"

"Lelouch," Kotoru coolly narrowed her eyes, "you haven't been listening to a word I've told you all day, and you got lost in the store twice, despite you having had worked here already for a bit over a week. You even spent half an hour today stacking books in the wrong shelf, when the right shelf was literally at the opposite side of the store! What could possibly be so interesting that you've been off on another planet all day?" Kotoru asked in a huff and, noticing that Lelouch was once again dazing off in a stare directed towards his lunch, she wrinkled her brows. "What is so fascinating about that sandwich?" she exclaimed, "what? Did it fall from the sky?"

Lelouch felt his cheeks warm slightly as he raised his guilty eyes from the food he held in his hands to the young girl's irritated face. "I'm sorry," he began apologetically, "but, really, it's nothing. I'm just having an off day."

"An 'off day?'" she repeated, one eyebrow raised inquisitively, "no, Lelouch, an 'off day' is forgetting your keys at home, or leaving the lights of your car on, but being in a mind numbing daze all day is-"

"Enough," a bored voice interrupted, cutting the teenaged girl off, "if you keep being so nosy, no one's every going to want to tell you anything."

Lelouch looked up from Kotoru to meet the gaze of a fellow male co-worker, Adelaide, as the young man stifled a yawn. The newest member of their conversation was tall and lanky, and Lelouch saw very little of him throughout the day. However, on the rare occasions he did, Adelaide was often sitting on the floor and leaning against a wall, or lying lazily in one of several recliner chairs meant for customers, snoozing away. In all honesty, Lelouch often wondered how he managed to keep his job at all- after all, what work did Adelaide actually _do_?

"Shut up, Adelaide, I'm not being nosy," Kotoru replied sharply, clearly annoyed by his intervening into her conversation with Lelouch.

"Then why are you here, bugging Lelouch on his lunch break, when you're on your shift?" he asked curtly, golden eyes narrowed cynically under his messy, chestnut colored hair. Kotoru let out an angry grumble, clearly defeated, and stood up from where she was sitting before promptly storming away.

"Such a brat. Doesn't she know bad tempers are _really_ unattractive?" Adelaide rhetorically asked, taking what was once the raven-haired girl's seat, only a few feet away from Lelouch. He raised his legs up and crossed them, leaning against a large glass window lazily. In the bookstore, Lelouch found, several white heaters were placed perpindicularly against the huge glass windows, appearing more like large boxes instead of furnaces. After all, now in midst of summer days, the heaters found themselves idle, only serving as extra seats. As the nonchalant young man yawned and leaned back against the wall, he took into consideration the violet-eyed boy stance as he slowly and considerately raised his sandwich to his lips. "So," he began, "what's her name?"

Lelouch immediately froze, halting before he could bite into the delicious-looking sandwich he held in his hands. "Who's name?" he asked in a shaky voice, clearly a bit dumbfounded by Adelaide's assumption. As he stared out the large glass window that stood to his side, he bit into his sandwich nervously, surprised to find it was delicious. _Very _delicious. He expected it to be, considering how good it looked, but he didn't know C.C. could create something that tasted _that_ good.

"The girl- what's her name?"

"What girl?"

"_That_ girl," he told him, waving his hand as though the concept was obvious, "Slim, curvy, yellow eyes, long green hair. What's her name?"

"I don't know why you're assuming I'm thinking about some girl, much less her," Lelouch replied before taking another large bite of his food, attempting to shrug off the drowsy boy's presumptions.

The older boy chuckled, "there's no point trying to deny it, since it's pretty obvious. Guys don't get off on a daze like that unless they're thinking about girls or food, and unless you've been fantasizing about that sandwich you're dogging down, I'm assuming it's about a girl. And if it _is_ about a girl, what better girl than that one? You're practically joined at the hip, after all."

"You really enjoy making assumptions, don't you?"

"And you really enjoy denying the obvious, don't you?"

Lelouch looked away from the cozy streets the glass separated him from to meet Adelaide's stare. Unsure as to how he should reply, he took another bite into his sandwich and chose to stay silent. Sometimes, he thought to himself, that was the best thing to do in situations such as this. _Maybe if I don't say anything at all_, he told himself, _he'll drop the topic completely. _Silence filled the air, and Lelouch, content, continued to eat quietly.

"So, this green-haired girl, what's her _name_?" Adelaide continued, shattering the silence almost randomly and, in consequence, unknowingly proving Lelouch's theory wrong.

"C.C.," Lelouch replied, before realizing he had just given in to the lanky boy's provocations.

"Mhmm," he replied with a nod, "bland name. Does it stand for something?"

"Yes,"

"What, pray tell?"

"It's rather personal,"

"I can respect that," Adelaide smiled, "what's she like? Anything like Kotoru? Or are girls like Kazuya more you're type?"

Lelouch wondered for a moment if Adelaide was truly interested, or if he was simply bored. He watched the brunette yawn heavily, as if on cue. _Probably the latter_, he thought to himself, eyes narrowed. "She's nothing like either of them. Kotoru is energetic, and likes having something to do. Kazuya is timid, and she's very soft spoken. C.C.'s the complete opposite of both- she's blunt, whether you like it or not, and she prefers to push responsibilities on others so she doesn't have to do them herself. She's sloppy, and never picks up after herself, and her definition of a good day is moping around eating pizza all day," Lelouch explained, a small hint of exhausted agitation in his voice.

Adelaide raised an eyebrow. "And here I was under the impression you liked her," he responded, "the way you looked at her when she came to pick you up the other day made it seem like there could've been a nuclear war going on and you wouldn't have even noticed. But, you don't like her personality. Does that mean you're only with her 'cause of her body or something?"

Lelouch frowned deeply, "if that was even close to the case, neither one of us would stand being anywhere near each other. She's got her flaws, but she's not to type of person that would stand anyone using her. She's strong, and extremely self-dependent. Her dignity borderlines arrogance. C.C. is brutally honest, the type of person who wouldn't say things just to say them, and would never submit to someone willing to do such a thing. That's one of things I like the most about her- she's not the type of woman I have to tiptoe around, or worry that if I don't sugarcoat things she'll fall to pieces."

"So the fact that she's got hips twice the size of her head has nothing to do with it?" he asked, jokingly.

"Not in the slightest," he deadpanned, taking the last bite out of his sandwich as he closed his eyes with a huff.

"Ah," Adelaide blissfully sighed, "I see. Well at least you're not the kind of guy to get into some type of shallow relationship with girl for her body."

Lelouch shook off the crumbs from his shirt and closed his eyes, trying to ignore any unwanted conceptions. "We're not in any sort of relationship," he explained.

"You're _kidding _me!" Adelaide exclaimed in an agitated, loud voice, as he threw his arms up in the air dramatically. Before Lelouch could question his strange reaction, the older teen let out an irritated sigh, cringing, and raised a single finger, as though initiating his upcoming words. "I never pinned you for the dense type, kid," he explained, suddenly sounding much older, "but maybe you've still got a lot of learning to do. Even so, it'd do you a heap of good if you did yourself a favor and stop hesitating."

Lelouch gave him a strange look, as though he didn't understand what he was implying. "I don't know what you're talking about," he remarked, attempting to dismiss him.

"You know perfectly well what I'm talking about, Lelouch Lamperouge, and if you need me to make it any clearer, let me put it as bluntly as possible- either you're with that girl, or you're not," he told him, "and if, by chance, you are _not_ with this girl, and never plan to be, than I suggest you prepare yourself to be confronted by people who will be willing to take her off your hands."

Lelouch found himself at a loss for words. His prideful nature told him to scoff away Adelaide's remarks, and regard them as nothing more as the ill mannered ranting of a man with far too much time on his hands, but his body seemed completely unresponsive. He sat frozen before Adelaide, who was now staring out the window apathetically, feeling as though everything had taken a pause, like the earth itself took a moment to hold it's breath. It was as though his vocal cords had tied themselves in a knot, and refused to allow any syllable to escape the dark abyss of his body. His mind, usually so cunning and prepared, was rendered utterly useless once confronted by the intense realization that what the chestnut-haired boy had just said was completely and irrevocably true.

The rest of the day, Lelouch spent his time attempting to show more productivity despite the lingering anticipation that bubbled within him, causing him to look at the ticking clock almost obsessively. When it finally struck five, and his workday was over, Lelouch had already gathered all his things and was standing by the door. Spurting out a speedy, half-hearted farwell, and waving goodbye quickly to his co-workers, he fled from the bookstore and made his way down the busy streets of town, reaching his home in record time. _"'If, by chance, you are not with this girl, and never plan to be, than I suggest you prepare yourself to be confronted by people who will be willing to take her off your hands,' what's that supposed to mean?"_ Lelouch thought to himself rather begrudgingly. Was Adelaide suggesting that he was interested in her? Or someone else? Did Adelaide know something that he didn't? The idea of such a thing agitated him to no end, and he was overwhelmed with the desire to destroy something, anything- he was fuming!

"Thank you for spending the day with me," he heard someone say in the distance.

"There's no need to thank me," he heard a familiar, cool voice reply, "but there was also no need to walk me home. You had no obligation to do so."

"It's not that I felt obliged, C.C.," he responded warmly, "I _wanted _to do it."  
Lelouch chose to keep silent, and stare at them from the corner of the bookstore he was standing at. Silently, he watched her giving the teenaged boy a small, graceful smile, one that he recognized immediately. It was one of her facial expressions that he cherished the most- when her lips would subtly lift into a small, calming smile that reached her eyes and caused her entire demeanor to shine with a sort of warmth that was only a glimmer of the kindness that dwelled within her. Then, like a catalyst spurring an explosive reaction, he found his heart taking a sudden twist. Lelouch found himself unwilling to share that smile, inwardly refusing to accept what he was seeing before him. Of the few things he hated, he detested feeling what he believed to be such juvenile feelings, however, what he hated more was finding that a completely unagreeable person had proved to be completely and utterly correct. She was being whisked away before his very eyes.

* * *

First of all, I want to sincerely apologize to all of you reading this. Whether this is your first time reading my story, or you've been following it through with me, I apologize for taking almost a year to update. Sincerely, I'm sorry. I've been going through a lot, and my lifestyle is very hectic and busy. Even so, I promise you this wont happen again. This story will once again be updated regularly and will be followed through. I owe all of you this much, and I assure you it will happen, God willing, because I already have an outline for the end of this story, and the future chapters written. I only have a bit of editing and modifying to do, and I will stack up the chapters soon enough!

Also, for this chapter, not much happened but it's essential to the story. This is all about nine pages long in Microsoft, though. Regarding the happenings of this story, I wanted to emphasize a gradually advancing relationship between Lelouch and C.C., while introducing Adelaide (another original character, and a cameo from my webcomic) who will be an essential catalyst for them. The problem with Lelouch and C.C., I think, is that they are far too similar. Both are prideful and self-sufficient, so submission to others is almost intolerable to them. So far, in this story, neither have admitted to themselves any feelings of love for the other. While Lelouch desires her, and C.C. "loves his hands," symbolically who he has become and his inner strength, neither one have realized what may be love for one another. Maybe they refuse to. To admit any feelings of infatuation, and put one's self on the line, is a very submissive thing, I think, in their mindset, so they are both simultaneously defiant and stubbornly independent, to the point where it at times hinders their relationship in the anime. Even so, their bond is precious and I want to continue depicting their growing feelings.

Enough ranting! God bless you and thank you for reading!


	8. HyperAware

Chapter 8: Hyperaware

Lelouch couldn't help himself; he turned and left. He spun right around and drove his feet forward, anger giving him strength while his sadness sucked it all away. His mind was in chaos, so he didn't notice when the slow-moving dirt beneath his feet became a blur.

He knew that they were too prideful. Simply put, it was their arrogant natures that caused so many problems and misconceptions between C.C and himself. Their interactions, more often than not, were comparable to emotional headbutting. "_That's precisely the problem," _he thought to himself_, "and the annoying thing is that it's so clear to me, yet I can't seem to do anything to stop it." _A familiar sensation of irritation boiled up within him, writhing about and gnawing at him. It didn't take long for this feeling to consume Lelouch and plunge him into a horrid mood. Perhaps it was the interaction with his co-worker, no, the look on that _stranger's_ face as he showered C.C. in compliments and sugar-coated words. The agitation grew worse and worse with all the noise that surrounded him as he heaved his way back to his home. The annoying voice of that boy. He repeated the words over and over in his head, like a mantra of hatred that overwhelmed his affection for C.C and turned it to bitter resentment. Several onlookers took time out of their not-so-busy schedules to watch the immortal teen brood and boil. In his agitation, Lelouch dismissed the concerned or surprised reactions of his neighbors in response to his almost comically darkened expression. They knew nothing of his despair.

"_I know it makes absolutely no sense to get upset over something so ridiculous," _he thought to himself, "_yet I can't help but feel angry. This is maddening! Why am I even angry in the first place? It's not as if I've ever been anything more than her 'accomplice.'" _He tried to think of every and any reason to feel so enraged but none seemed satisfactory. They didn't have money, but he was used to that. He was in desperate need of new clothes and more furniture, but he could make due. They were living off of generosity and minimum wage for every evening dinner, but that wasn't quite it either. In the very center of his heart, he knew the truth. The warm embrace of denial, however, was too tantalizing to refuse - and because Lelouch knew perfectly well how prideful he could be, he refused to be humiliated by a feeling as deplorable as envy. He had _nothing _to envy; that's what he tried to convince himself. How did he truly feel about her? Suddenly, he remembered what he had done in a fit of desperation, when he had reached out to C.C. When he tried to kiss her. Looking back on it, Lelouch remembered that he and Kallen had been placed in a similar situation. Both times he had reached out for comfort, for an escape. However, there was one key difference that allowed him to finally make up his mind. When he had tried to kiss Kallen, he had been trying to use her, to use her body as an escape. When she had rejected him and run off, he had felt nothing. His heart was still, even though his mind had been reeling.

After C.C rejected him, his heart stopped. It "broke," in a sense. His mind had been screaming yet, at the same time, seemed to stop functioning entirely. His throat dried up, his body shook, his fingers trembled. Carefully thinking all this through, Lelouch slowly began nodding his head. The brutal truth sent him spiraling downward.

He cared for her in a way that no mere "accomplice" would. She was everything to him. He reasoned that this feeling was what so many people eagerly described as "love," but he would need just a little more time to know for sure. His thoughts shifted to C.C, and his heart immediately began to race. How did she feel about him? Was he just dead weight to her, an unfulfilled obligation? Did she harbor affection for that _boy,_ that sweet-talker, that...that _witch stealer_! In that very instant, the answer to the question he told himself would remain unanswered spoke for itself. His despair turned to agitation as he remembered: "_She still hasn't explained a thing to me about the Code, and-"_

"Hello, Lelouch!" came a warm, feminine voice from behind the former emperor. Lelouch's eyes, which had been focused on his feet, snapped up. When he turned, his eyes met cool jade ones that shone, and a smile that radiated happiness. His eyes widened immediately - home already? Unsure of the time, he took a quick look at his wristwatch. Barely ten minutes had passed since he left work. "_Now that's a surprise. Did I honestly _run _home?" _he asked himself, shocked by how irrational he had behaved. Lelouch vi Britannia, 99th Emperor of the Britannian Empire and former master of the world did not run! Not willingly, in any case.

"Er," he forced out awkwardly. "Hello, Nannerell. I'm sorry, but to be perfectly honest, I hadn't even realized where I was going; or, for that matter, where my mind was. How are you?"

"I'm well, thank you! Actually, I was just thinking that I've been getting rather huge. I'm pretty conspicuous, so if you had actually overlooked me, perhaps I'd have taken you to get a pair of glasses." The pregnant woman chuckled and rested a slim hand on his shoulder, squeezing it gently. "What's wrong, dear? Why the sad face?"

Lelouch laughed, but it was forced. Humorless. Empty. He maintained the smile and shook his head. Quietly shuffling his feet, he faced the motherly woman. She had a certain glow about her that seemed to rub off on him and, in that moment, he wondered if her being with child was the cause. Perhaps it was the innate sort of grace she carried within her that made it so hard to lie to her. That, and her tone revealed how intuitive she really was.

"Was I making a face? I'm sorry about that. I'm perfectly fine, so you're worrying over nothing," he said, speaking in the cheery octave he often used on others when putting up a front. As of right now, he was not Lelouch the emperor, Lelouch the immortal, Lelouch the warlock. He was Lelouch the student council member, the chess player, the lovable delinquent. He was wearing his old mask again.

"Mmm." She hummed for a moment, pretending to consider what he had said. "I'm not convinced. Quite frankly, I'm offended! Do I look like a naïve schoolgirl to you?" She giggled innocently. "Now, since it's only five 'o' clock, would you mind sitting down and talking with me?"

Lelouch hesitated for a moment, but his shoulders suddenly felt more relaxed. His arms went limp, his fists unclenched. _"I'm comfortable. I'm letting my guard down because I feel comfortable. How is she doing this?"_

"It's the least you could do! You tried lying to me, after all!" she joked. She winked, and Lelouch smiled despite himself. Perhaps five minutes or so couldn't hurt. He had no reason to rush home, after all. Thoughts of C.C and what she could be doing with that _boy _occupied his mind again, and he felt bitter. He followed the grinning woman to her shop, immersing himself in the sweet aroma of pastries and bread as her husband hurriedly made his way all around the store. The last orders for the day wouldn't make themselves, after all.

Lelouch approached the table nearest to the manager's office and sat down. Ever curious, he watched as the older Britannian sat down with a breath of relief and a light passing of the hand over her projecting belly. "I think the baby has something against me," she told him with a light chuckle. "He's been at it all day, kicking me as if he's a karate master!"

"He?" Lelouch questioned, somehow managing a genuine smile. "You're having a boy?"

"Actually, I don't know my baby's gender yet. I've decided that I want to keep it a surprise, though. My husband isn't a very patient man. He asked the doctor as soon as he could and has been teasing me about whether it's a boy or a girl nonstop."

"Ah, I see!" Lelouch said gently. "I'm sure the surprise makes it more enjoyable! Have you thought of any names, then?"

"Well, I really _do _believe I'm going to have a boy, so I've thought about a couple of names. I want to choose a Japanese name, though. I'm quite partial to the name 'Maru!' I think it's beautiful, but my husband doesn't seem to agree. Can you believe he told me it sounds like a dog's name? What a jerk he is, to tell me something like that!"

Her lip protruded into a childish pout and her animated face brought a laugh out of the young man that surprised even him. There was something about this woman's doting he found humorous, so he couldn't help but feel a bit cheerier in her company. She smiled brightly in response.

"That's the face I want to see!" she exclaimed. "Leave that sulking one behind, Lulu. If looks could kill, my dear, you would've massacred the _entire _town."

Lelouch grimly shook off the irony behind her choice of words. If only she knew.

"So, let's hear it," Nannerell insisted. Her husband nodded, matching her smile. "Why the grim look today? Was it a bad day at work? Are you having trouble adjusting?"

"I told you," he murmured, "it's nothing. Really."

"Lulu, we both know that's a lie. Did you and C.C. get into a fight?"

Her eyes softened when she caught a flicker of emotion in his expression before it returned to the nonchalant one he was sporting previously. "You know, you don't have to tell me if you don't want to. But, think of it like this: you're a young adult! You can't just pent things up, you know. Bad for the skin and the mind, not to mention your heart! Even your hair. You could catch that salt-and-pepper look when you're barely into your twenties. If you've got people who care for you, you'll not only relieve them - you'll also get all that weight off your shoulders at the same time. Doesn't that sound better than the alternative, Lulu?"

He studied her face carefully. Could he really trust her? He had learned that to trust is to open the path to betrayal. Kururugi Suzaku, his best friend, had even betrayed him in the past. Willfully throwing exposing one's innermost thoughts and desires...the very idea seemed foreign and almost wrong to him. Being the charismatic leader that he was, he couldn't afford to display such weakness. Only C.C could ever see beneath the masks and understand him, and she looked so close to that _boy, _so vulnerable.

"_I can't help but feel such trepidation...the idea of venting is a satisfying one, but...that life I lead is over now. There is no longer any need for my old ambition. I don't need to watch each and every word I speak, nor do I need to act so reserved. Opening up won't be easy, but perhaps it's the only way to stay sane anymore. Maybe the long-term benefits outweigh the downsides, which only appear to be embarrassment and a wounded pride. If I can survive a sword strike, I can survive this. _With a deep breath, Lelouch dismissed his hesitation and submitted to her request.

"I'm not used to living like this, I guess" he admitted, "and the life I lived before coming here was so different. I suppose you're correct...I'm just not adjusting well."

"And?" she prompted.

"And..." he forced out, slowly and confused, "I..?"

"That can't be all! C'mon, Lulu, you're a smart boy. Give me details, adjectives, the whole nine!"

Lelouch laughed, "You're really quite persistent, you know?"

He paused, took another deep breath, and spoke carefully. "I don't like being dependent on others. I've lived my entire life supporting myself and the few people I had around me, and now things seem to have completely changed. I'm surrounded by strangers. I'm in a place so unlike the place I once called home and there are a lot of questions I've left unanswered. I've left them in the past without trying to dig them back up. I guess when it comes down to it, I've been struggling to fit into this new life, but over and over again it becomes apparent to me that I'm barely hanging on a thread."

"And C.C is that thread?"

Lelouch hesitated, but swallowed his pride and nodded, heart pounding.

"Is there any way for you to go back home?"

Lelouch shook his head, averting his eyes. "No. I can never go back."

"Then why not move somewhere else, perhaps where you have some relatives or friends?" Nannerell looked confused.

"To be honest, I don't have anyone else to turn to," he replied. "Nobody else in the world is willing to take me in or stay by my side."

"And does the thought of having no one else to rely on..." She paused, and spoke carefully. "...unsettle you?"

He took a moment to pause. He understood what she was implying, but the answer was not a simple one. "It does."

Lelouch noted the slight disappointment on the elder's face. "I'm sorry," he added quickly. "Really, it's nothing personal at all. You're a wonderful person and I appreciate every courtesy you've extended to me. I guess I wasn't measuring what I was saying at all. I'm rather sorry if I've offended you."

"No," she shook her head, "that's not a problem. However, you keep speaking as if you're completely alone. And I would better understand your feelings if you came here that way. But perhaps I was under the wrong impression. Doesn't _she_ mean anything to you?"

He felt something twinge within his chest and surface as irritation. "Of course C.C. does," he rebutted with a hint of disdain, "but you can't possibly expect me to dump all my weaknesses on her, can you? My personal problems are just that: personal. They are my own, and though she may feel obligated to help me, she is not responsible for any of my problems."

"Then you're simply being callous," she replied strictly, "and dismissing the fact that she is your companion and friend."

"It's not callousness," he explained, "but I need to take into consideration her feelings as well. I can't keep her beside me out of obligation."

"You think C.C. has been staying by your side because she owes you one?" she asked, as if he was speaking a different language. "Are you _insane? _Don't you know, Lelouch? Haven't you seen the way she looks at you, the way you seem to brighten her?"

Lelouch's violet eyes narrowed, and the pain in his chest only intensified. "I don't think you understand. I'm only here today because of her, and that's already so much to ask for. I haven't once been able to meet her half way; when she's given me all that I could have asked for time and time again, how could I? I'm a burden to her, a nullified contract. I'm tired of borrowing and borrowing and never having anything to show for it! Never having anything to give back!" Lelouch didn't know where this self-hatred was stemming from, but he loved it. Some small, twisted part of him loved that he could make Nannerell understand how little he was truly worth.

"Are you really feeling so much self-pity that you can't bring yourself to be around the only person you have?" Nannerell looked conflicted, saddened.

"I'm saying that I'm becoming so disillusioned that I can't stand myself anymore, and I can't understand why she can. I thought I was strong, self-reliant, peerless! My masks have come falling down, and now I'm completely powerless—powerless to the point where I have to depend on her for everything. All that I am, I owe to her! And I completely hate it. I can't maintain this inadequacy I'm calling my "life" and just pretend like everything's okay! We don't have _furniture, _Nannerell. We don't have chairs for our damn table! But she keeps going on, working harder and harder, pretending to be happy for my sake. Acting as if nothing at all has changed. If it was all her fault, if all of this was the result of her mistakes, things would be different. But she's not to blame. She never was! She hasn't done anything to deserve this life. She deserves better than I, she deserves to find someone who can take care of her and make her truly happy. One day, she's going to realize that she's had enough. I already have. It's clear that she'd do just fine without me, so perhaps it is time I relieved her of this burden—the burden that is my life. I do not deserve to live with her, but I cannot live without her." He didn't know when the tears revealed themselves, but now they simply would not disappear. "Therefore, the best thing I can do is remove myself from her life, from life itself, and erase any evidence of my presence here. Or anywhere else, for that matter."

Lelouch felt spent, both physically and emotionally. It was all he could do to prevent from breaking down entirely, so he just put his head in his hands and let the tears do as they saw fit. Nannerell and her beloved husband both comforted him, rubbing his shoulders, back and head, whispering words of solace they suspected would never truly heal him. The former emperor didn't care, didn't shrug them off or struggle against their combined hugging. They had become dear to him, and though he wanted to push them away for their own sakes, he just couldn't find the strength to do so.

Upon entering their home, C.C was greeted with complete and utter silence. Granted, Lelouch was in no way the noisy type, but the silence that filled the air pounded on her ears. The person she was so excited to see clearly was not home. Suddenly, the weight of her day crashed down on her shoulders and almost spilled out from the very top of her head to the soles of her feet. The days, it seemed, were getting longer and more complicated. Though she wanted to push that thought to the back of her mind, the green-haired witch knew very well that the tranquility of her new life was soon going to come to crashing halt. She could _feel _it.

She dragged herself into Lelouch's room and languidly undressed until she was clad only in her usual undergarments. Certainly, it wasn't necessarily an act of eroticism—it never had been. She stripped down simply out of laziness and in reaction to the humidity that filled their apartment. Throwing herself dramatically onto the bed (something done only for the sake of amusement), she reached under the soft pillows and pulled out her partner's shirts.

"_I don't even know why he tries anymore," _she thought to herself with a chuckle. "_I wear these more than he does, anyway. I've probably stretched them out by now, considering how thin he is."_

Buttoning down the white shirt, she threw her head back against the pillow and stared at the ceiling. So many different things were whirring about in her mind, she simply couldn't focus on one thought at a time. The aching was unbearable. She was filled with turmoil and anxiety, and knew not how to stop the pain from spreading from her mind into her heart. Probably because it already had, long ago. She closed her eyes and battled violently against a familiar itching in her throat.

_I thought this would be the safest place for us. I should've been smarter than to stay near Japan, even if this island is completely isolated. But Britannia wasn't a choice and traveling by plane wasn't an option. We never would've been able to leave the country. We'd have been poked and prodded and attached to machinery for the rest of our eternal lives._

C.C crossed her arms and closed her eyes. "_What have I done to you, Lelouch? All of this is to protect you, each and every step. That's what it was, at first...but now? What am I doing, now? Why am I doing whatever it is that I'm doing? What good will come of this if he, too, gets ki-_

Suddenly, the phone rang.

The witch hesitated. She rose up, treading carefully towards the sound. The rings came in sync with each of her slow, deliberate steps. She stopped within arm's reach of the phone. Slowly, quietly, her eyes solemnly looked at the cheap, white device that adorned their living room table. A silent war began to rage within her, and climaxed when her fingertips touched the smooth plastic of the receiver. She'd let it ring. Just let it ring. They'd hang up.

"_Oh, C.C., hello? Are you there?"_ a familiar voice asked the machine, _"Helloooo? Anyone, anyone at all? It's_ _Alkaid. I'm calling to check up on my number one patient. If you two have been keeping up with the medication, he should be better by now. Has he been complaining about chest pain at all, dearest? You really should tell me these things, you know. Doctor's orders and such."_

C.C. waited a moment. "_Stop speaking_," she commanded mentally. "_Just stop now. Hang up that damned phone. Stop speaki-"_

"Well, C.C., it seems you're not in the mood to pick up. Pity. I thought we were the closest of friends, way back when. Oh well. Get back to me when you can. I'll be stopping by to see you soon, by the way. I know you have no intention of leaving any time soon. Never pegged you like the type to stay, you know? Always thought you'd knock that head right off your dainty little neck without a second's thought. Curious, don't you think?"

"_He can't hear me," _she told herself, "_he can't hear me, he can't see me. He has no way of knowing, he has no way of touching us, he-"_

"Oh, and, love? **Do** keep out of harm's way, won't you? I heard some **strange** little rumor that there's been this group of lunatics attacking poor villagers! I always thought they were just talk, you know? Kids these days and the like. Seems things got **serious** this time, though. They had gotten into a bloody little scrap the other day, as a matter of fact. Blood _all_ over the place. Out of curiosity, I checked the bodies myself. Apparently, they all committed suicide, right on the street! Talk about a **mortal** mistake, huh? Oh, my...that was too morbid, don't you think? Even for me?"

Her heart leapt up to her throat. "_He can't hear me. He can't see me. He won't touch us, he can't."_

"Ah, but there I go rambling on and on! How long is this voice mail going to be, right? Sorry about that, dearest. Do get back to me, won't you? Keep safe, really. Don't forget, my little owl. I'd call the boy a sparrow, but don't you think a raven would be much more fitting? Ah, the wonders of my mind. Whatever. Bye, _dear_."

The phone call was over. The "doctor", as he called himself, had finished speaking. The flow of time itself seemed, for once, frozen. She had to delete the message, delete it before Lelouch got home. But her hands shook and her knees, she realized, gave out. She couldn't let him know. Mustn't.

And then she heard a sharp _chinkle_ sound...the sound of keys on their wooden floor. Her golden orbs swiftly turned to the front door, and what she saw robbed her of air, of life. In utter shock, C.C. could only watch helplessly as Lelouch approached her. He'd been standing in the doorway the entire time.

* * *

Hello, everyone! I hope you've enjoyed this chapter. It's the first of a good many to come, guys, I sincerely promise. I've made a promise to myself and the support all of you have given me has proven that I'm not doing this only for myself, but each and every one of you, too. If things seem a bit confusing, guys, please do forgive me. With each chapter, things will start to fall into place, I hope.

Last but not least, I have a Beta reader now! I want you all to know that this chapter was really perfected by **Salaeren**, who's been a wonderful person and help in the past two days that we've been working together. I hope our combined efforts will allow you guys to fully enjoy this piece! Thank you for reading and please do tell me what you think. God bless you!


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